Advent calendars

Advent calendars have been around since the 1800s. The chocolate? Not so long.

The humble typewriter

These machines came with no grammar correction, no spell checker, definitely no autocorrect, no language diplomacy. You needed to consider your choice of words carefully. After all, you only got one go.

Communications

Non-predictive text

We live in the days of “Damn you, Autocorrect!” Back in the 1990s, we had to press a key four times just to get a single letter.

Photographs and film

Disc cameras

Another example of The Future that remains firmly in The Past. But wait! Also an example of The Future hiding in The Past.

Architecture

World Heritage status and a cinema

In July 2021, UNESCO removed Liverpool from its World Heritage Status list. Surprised? Not if you’ve seen what they’re planning (and what they’ve already built.)

Consignia

I wonder why I am thinking of Consignia? Ah, the latest Post Office scandal wraps up in the High Court…

Lymeswold

The first new cheese for two hundred years, they announced. Didn’t last quite as long as that.

The busy signal

The busy signal told you something. Voicemail tells you a lot less.

Thorntons

You will still be able to buy the truffles and the toffee and the strawberry dreams. Just not on the High Street.

Topshop

Topshop was teetering before the pandemic caused the brand finally to topple.

The St Michael Cookery Library

The 1970s brought us cooking with colour!

Blue passports

For more than 70 years, a 32-page passport with a dark blue cover, with the lion and unicorn crest in gold was the identification UK citizens needed to leave their island. After Brexit, one of the most urgent and vital questions remained: Could the blue passport come back?

StayatHome1

Back in the spring, in the UK, we had our first lockdown to bring the coronavirus under control. We never dreamed we’d have another. That’s why we never gave StayAtHome a number. Until now.

Play for Today

We said goodbye to Play for Today in 1984. These are some of my favourite milestones in the strand of dramas.

Knowledge organised in random alphabetical chunks

In 2012, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that, after 244 years, fifteen editions and selling more than 7 million sets of its volumes, it was going out of print. The 32 volumes and 44 million words of the 2010 edition were its last.

We Just Had These…

A small museum of the recently vanished