Phonecards

They were once a modern miracle. No longer did you have to have a pocketful of coins to make a phone call. Instead, you could reach for the magic card.

Finisterre

Every day in the UK, the Meteorological Office issues four weather forecasts for people in boats. Lots of people not in boats listen to the Shipping Forecast, too. So, when you propose changing it, the result is outcry.

01 for London

London’s been 01, 071, 081, 0171, 0181, then 020. No wonder so many people don’t know their own telephone number.

CD-ROMs

CD-ROMs were the flavour of the 1990s. What happened to them?

Netscape Navigator

This was once the way to see the World Wide Web. In the mid-1990s, as the web began to take off, the Netscape Navigator browser was used by more than 90% of people online.

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.

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.

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.) Once, though, your landline was your essential entry point to the online world.