STA

The travel agency is another casualty of COVID.

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Communications / Retail

The Argos catalogue

The book of dreams is dust.

Communications

The iPod Nano

My little iPod Nano has been around the world with me. (Twice.) Surely it would be easy to find its like elsewhere.

Retail

Cath Kidston Stores

Risk your life for a floral teatowel? Not so much. Flour? Now you’re talking.

Communications

Fax machines

Fax machines are vanishing from the NHS. By order. Although they are still surprisingly healthy in other parts of the world.

Cafés

Cafés. Remember them? It seems not so long ago that we could meet a friend for a coffee and a cake, or perk up a trip to the shops with a timely cup of tea… In fact, it was a week ago today that the UK government closed all sit-down dining venues, including restaurants, pubs,…

The spirit duplicator

Remember those fuzzy school handouts in purple? The ones that came with the complimentary side-effect of a hangover? Sadly gone. Geography lessons will never be the same.

A Debenhams near you

In January 2020, the UK lost a further 19 Debenhams department stores. More casualties of the British High Street crisis. So, should we put our mourning outfits on?

Handwritten letters

A note written especially for you. By hand. A rare thing, except maybe, perhaps, at Christmastime.

The astrolabe

Once a useful measuring instrument for finding out where you were at sea, perhaps the astrolabe can guide us when the opinion polls are all at sea.

Bye bye, Brides

Bashful brides or canny cohabitors? Probably neither

Thomas Cook

It was in the early hours of the morning of 23 September that the slogan “Don’t just book it, Thomas Cook it” took on a new and wholly unwelcome meaning.