And I remember a white cat with no tail
Aug. 5th, 2005 08:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI am invariably annoyed when people write articles about things remembered from childhood which "you don't get nowadays". For a start, they always seem to include things like "milk arriving on the doorstep" which you do get nowadays (or I do, anyway). Or "children playing in the road"; if you believe doesn't happen these days, drive down Swinburne Rd at teatime. Ask ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zandev for details.
These lists often seem to be pointless nostalgia-fests - wasn't the world great when you could buy ten rhubarb-and-custard chews for ten pence and play out til teatime? Well, yes, it was; but surely that's the cry of each succeeding generation since Cane first wailed to Abel that chocolate fruit-of-the-tree-of-knowledge wasn't a patch on the stuff you could get when they were kiddies.
Now, maybe it's just one of those things that one person's harmless nostalgia is another's sentimental wallowing. I do find myself fascinated, though, by the everyday things which just silently drop out of life - and which you don't notice at the time, until suddenly you hear a phrase which catapults you back twenty years.
The phrase "dial 01 if you're outside London". Going out for a country walk and finding rabbits dying of myxomatosis. Hearing news reports attributed to "the Soviet news agency, TASS". The little square plastic tags which held bags of sliced bread closed.
Unlike long-forgotten things like adverts and one-hit-wonders, they're things which seemed incredibly permanent at the time. By definition, they're hard things to think of, because they're exactly the things you don't think of from day to day, and which are rarely marked in museums in the way that other obsolete things might be. They're not missed, or necessarily remembered with any great fondness. I suppose their seeming permanence might just have been an artefact of me being little - TASS probably didn't seem so inevitable to someone who remembered the forming of the Sovet Union.
Some things, like the mentions of TASS, disappeared as the result of momentous events. Others, like the bread tags, were just replaced by a technological development which rocked nobody's life (and you just try putting those little bits of tape round the spokes of your bike wheels). I'll happily consider submissions for other examples.
Some things which I thought had quietly shuffled out of existence seem just to have retreated further north with time. A year or so ago I was at home in Darlington and was delighted to hear a strangely, unearthly shout from the far end of the road:
"Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag-bn Nyag-bn"
These days it's a pick-up truck, of course, with a second guy walking along side it. When I was little it was a man in a horse and cart. But my parents' road still occasionally gets visits from the rag-and-bone man. Given the number of old fridges, microwaves, sofas etc which haunt the side roads of Cowley, we could do with one down here. Whether they would still make the same unintelligble noise is an interesting question.
zandev for details.These lists often seem to be pointless nostalgia-fests - wasn't the world great when you could buy ten rhubarb-and-custard chews for ten pence and play out til teatime? Well, yes, it was; but surely that's the cry of each succeeding generation since Cane first wailed to Abel that chocolate fruit-of-the-tree-of-knowledge wasn't a patch on the stuff you could get when they were kiddies.
Now, maybe it's just one of those things that one person's harmless nostalgia is another's sentimental wallowing. I do find myself fascinated, though, by the everyday things which just silently drop out of life - and which you don't notice at the time, until suddenly you hear a phrase which catapults you back twenty years.
The phrase "dial 01 if you're outside London". Going out for a country walk and finding rabbits dying of myxomatosis. Hearing news reports attributed to "the Soviet news agency, TASS". The little square plastic tags which held bags of sliced bread closed.
Unlike long-forgotten things like adverts and one-hit-wonders, they're things which seemed incredibly permanent at the time. By definition, they're hard things to think of, because they're exactly the things you don't think of from day to day, and which are rarely marked in museums in the way that other obsolete things might be. They're not missed, or necessarily remembered with any great fondness. I suppose their seeming permanence might just have been an artefact of me being little - TASS probably didn't seem so inevitable to someone who remembered the forming of the Sovet Union.
Some things, like the mentions of TASS, disappeared as the result of momentous events. Others, like the bread tags, were just replaced by a technological development which rocked nobody's life (and you just try putting those little bits of tape round the spokes of your bike wheels). I'll happily consider submissions for other examples.
Some things which I thought had quietly shuffled out of existence seem just to have retreated further north with time. A year or so ago I was at home in Darlington and was delighted to hear a strangely, unearthly shout from the far end of the road:
"Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag-bn Nyag-bn"
These days it's a pick-up truck, of course, with a second guy walking along side it. When I was little it was a man in a horse and cart. But my parents' road still occasionally gets visits from the rag-and-bone man. Given the number of old fridges, microwaves, sofas etc which haunt the side roads of Cowley, we could do with one down here. Whether they would still make the same unintelligble noise is an interesting question.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 07:51 am (UTC)The more specific "do you remember Z twiddly flange thing" can be more enjoyable. I'd forgotten all about the bread tage until you mentioned them here, and now I find myself wondering when they disappeared, and whether there are still any out there. TASS on the other hand went over my head - I must have been old enough to hear about them but not to clock their existence in my long term memory.
Anyway, I should return the favour, so (without knowing whether it still exists - probably it does) I shall remind you of the existence of banana-flavoured cough(?) medicine. Ahhh, them were the days.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 07:54 am (UTC)Antibiotics ? That's Amoxil (active ingredient Amoxicilin) (why do I remember such useless trivia?) and unless any of the medically qualified types round here want to correct me, it's still the generic catch-all antibiotic of choice. No idea if it's still 'nana-flavoured, though, they give boring old capsules to so-called adults.
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Date: 2005-08-05 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 09:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-11 07:42 pm (UTC)Some of the Red Bull cocktails which Wetherspoons do (did?) taste exactly like Calpol. Sadly, what was nice on a 5ml teaspoon wasn't nice (in my opinion) when it arrived in half pints!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 09:06 am (UTC)For obvious reasons, they don't sell kaolin and morphine anymore, though you can still find some if you rummage through an elderly relative's medicine cabinet. I've been told it is an excellent source for reasonable quality morphine, as the ingredients settle out after a while...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 09:51 am (UTC)Apparently, it really doesn't take very long at all, to settle out.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-11 07:43 pm (UTC)It does separate out extremely quickly.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-06 10:28 pm (UTC)