Lymeswold
The first new cheese for two hundred years, they announced. Didn’t last quite as long as that.
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.
STA
The travel agency is another casualty of COVID.
The Argos catalogue
The book of dreams is dust.
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.
Cath Kidston Stores
Risk your life for a floral teatowel? Not so much. Flour? Now you’re talking.
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? 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, clubs and…
