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.
Consignia
I wonder why I am thinking of Consignia? Ah, the latest Post Office scandal wraps up in the High Court…
The busy signal
The busy signal told you something. Voicemail tells you a lot less.
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.
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.
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.
Fax machines
Fax machines are vanishing from the NHS. By order. Although they are still surprisingly healthy in other parts of the world.
Handwritten letters
A note written especially for you. By hand. A rare thing, except maybe, perhaps, at Christmastime.
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