What has Disappeared?

[Airborne01]

Home & Colonial stores with broken biscuits in a glass-topped tin, rice in sacks, and cheese on a marble pedestal under glass, the assistant cut the cheese with a wooden handled wire!
Steve

[Guest]

Chocolate wrapped in foil rather than plastic….I’m sure it tasted better.

Odd, foil with a paper wrapper around it is still the norm here.

White dog poo

I never knew that was a thing until I saw it mentioned in an episode of Life on Mars, when the main character remarks on it.

Almost going back to the days of rural communities having their own independent bus and council owned and run corporation bus services isn’t it. Not sure why it should really be a council responsibility really though

In the Netherlands, bus services were privatised in the 1990s due to liberal¹ economic theories of the kind best known to British readers from the Thatcher years. Until then, they were provided by public companies that was usually owned by the province (equivalent to a county in UK terms) or, in major cities, by the city council. However, in recent years rural provinces — such as the one I live in — have been getting ever more shortchanged by the bus companies they’ve contracted, with stops and lines being scrapped for not being an efficient use of resources. It’s come to the point where the provincial government here hasn’t been able find a contractor to perform bus services when the current company’s contract runs out in a few years’ time. There has been talk of the province setting up its own bus service once more.

¹ Note for any Americans reading this: in Europe, “liberal” means “right-wing” and very much not “socialist”. Just so you know.

---

As for things I can think of around here that have disappeared …

• Probably the most obvious one is guilder coins and notes.
• SRV vans. (Somebody mentioned milk floats earlier. These were similar electric vehicles, but bigger, so they were actual mini-supermarkets on wheels that came round your street once or twice a week.)
• Handshakes:

• Petrol pumps at local village garages.
• Local village garages, for that matter.
• Record stores.
• Lack of self-censorship (I mean that as I put it: I notice a lot of people censoring themselves for all kinds of things when they wouldn’t have done so ten or twenty years ago).
• A variety of buildings around my village that I think should still be there, instead of the modern apartment blocks that have been put in their places.

[yak face]

Was Magic brain an update of Magic robot Dave? I had the robot one and simply couldn’t work out how it knew the answers. Magnets were involved, but I didn’t (still don’t to be honest) know how it worked.

My cousin had one Tim and we were the same - couldnt work out how it knew the answers! When I saw one at a car boot a few years ago I had to get it , cost -50p . I’ll get it out of the loft and have a go .

[Tim Marlow]

Home & Colonial stores with broken biscuits in a glass-topped tin, rice in sacks, and cheese on a marble pedestal under glass, the assistant cut the cheese with a wooden handled wire!
Steve

Forgotten about broken biscuits. Our local Cadena (deli and cafe) used to also do broken chocolate. Basically the bits out of the bottom of the pan after they’d made the hand made chocolates.

[Mark1]

Ash trays in cinemas
Sparrows
My fashion sense
Paraffin heaters
Yellow pages

[stillp]

GPs who made house calls
Cassettes and their players
Redex dispensers next to petrol pumps

[Airborne01]

GPs who made house calls
Cassettes and their players
Redex dispensers next to petrol pumps

Love the smell of Redex!
Steve

[Guest]

Elastic garters for cubs socks with little green tabs on them.
Philips cassette recorder and microphone.
Church fetes
Coconut shies
point to point races
Murray Walker
John Peel and The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Crystal set radios
The Beano

John

..Murray Walker.. oh mate yes. I miss him so so much.

[stillp]

..Murray Walker.. oh mate yes. I miss him so so much.

I preferred Raymond Baxter

[peterairfix]

Corner shops
Post offices
Local small pubs
I can remember one street in Taunton when I was small it had one post office two corner shops butchers a laundrette fish and chip shop and a gents barber only the fish and chip shop remain.

[Steve-the-Duck]

And the consensus of opinion is...

We are all VERY old!
And Grumpy

And...
Oh god no! not THAT public information film!

[Allen Dewire]

Damn Chris!!! Did you have to remind us with your consensus................

[Airborne01]

Let's just keep calm and carry on!
Steve

[Allen Dewire]

Here's another one and it may sound a bit dumb...Remember, way back when, where you made an order with a mail order hobby shop and paid with a money order. You didn't know for sure if they got it or not. You waited, and waited, with high anticipation, and went to the post office everyday to see if your order came. After a couple of weeks, you had a yellow card in you post box, took it to the window, and got your package. A very exciting thing and you couldn't wait to get back home to open it and see the goods inside.......

Today, you can see your payment, track your package and have it in a few days.......All with the tap of a few keys on the computer...

Back in the old days when I was a kid, ordering hobby stuff was a lot more exciting............until your Mom found out where your allowance went!...

Prost
Allen

[davecov]

Was Magic brain an update of Magic robot Dave? I had the robot one and simply couldn’t work out how it knew the answers. Magnets were involved, but I didn’t (still don’t to be honest) know how it worked.

No, Tim. I know the game you meant.

The Magic Brain Calculator is this: