The National Anthem in cinemas

Why on earth did we once play the national anthem in cinemas? Oh, of course. Bonnie Prince Charlie.

White eggs

In the UK, our breakfast eggs are brown. In the US, they’re white. Is there any actual reason for this?

Two-Way Family Favourites

This radio programme is why British people taste the tang of Yorkshire puddings when they hear Doris Day. And sometimes vice versa.

Communications

Phone numbers you had to remember

Nowadays, we have subcontracted out the memorising of numbers to our devices, not our brains. You used to have to know someone’s number to be able to dial it, or look it up in a phone directory or the soon-to-be extinct Yellow Pages.

Photographs and film

Film cement

The stuff you used to glue your negatives together is like tigers in the wild. Still there… but only just.

Football-related toothbrushes

“What are we going to put on the packaging of this toothbrush?”

“Oh, the answer’s obvious.”

Turkey twizzlers

Once a school lunchtime staple, the processed meat spirals passed into oblivion under the withering heat of Jamie Oliver’s stare. Some members of the public, however, believe they should return.

Interludes

Once we had Interludes between the pieces of our live TV broadcasts. Nowadays, we no longer need them. Or maybe we still do…?

Adios, Avios?

There was a flurry of anxiety back in April, when people got the message that Avios were being abandoned. They aren’t. But now you have to get to them via BA.

Maplin

When people kept coming in to the Shrewsbury branch of Maplin to ask the staff about the store’s closure, the staff had a quick response.

The Internet over your phone

Of course you have the Internet on your phone. (Well, you probably do. Although sales of dumb phones are on the rise, so maybe you don’t.) When we first had the Internet, we didn’t have the IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence specification (for which Wi-Fi is the cute trademark) paradise we have today. Wi-fi is the…

We Just Had These…

A small museum of the recently vanished