Postal orders

Postal orders, it turns out, are clinging on to life. The Night Mail, though? No.

Continue reading →

Travel

European Health Insurance Card

Bye bye, EHIC. Hello, EHIC in disguise.

Glass containing pink prawn cocktail alongside a slice of lemon

Food

Luncheon Vouchers

A free lunch? Surely such a thing has never existed? Actually, for decades, in Britain, there was.

Household

Master Mind

Colours? Codes? It’s Wordle! Except, I’ve seen this before…

Jackanory

Bedtime stories. They may disappear. But they always come back.

2021

2021 was going to be a much better year than the last one. Or so we told ourselves…

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.

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.

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.

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.)