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.
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.
STA
The travel agency is another casualty of COVID.
The Argos catalogue
The book of dreams is dust.
