Remember the good old days?

[richerthanyou]

I'm watching Jackie Brown and noticed that she is smoking inside an airport. Funny how things change. Speaking of which I watched an episode of The Twilight Zone recently where Captain Kirk was smoking on an airplane.

Anyone else miss things from the old days that aren't around any more?

[Professor Bear]

I think there's an EU regulation that states that someone has to mention "white dog poo" in these Things You Don't See Anymore discussions, but I do not miss the stink of tobacco in public places one bit.

[IndigoPrime]

Yeah, smoking's not something I miss either. When I was at uni — art college in Cardiff — I was in the tiny minority that didn't smoke. I'd say about 80%+ of my friends smoked, about about a third of them were into weed. Every time I got home from the student bar, a pub or a club, my clothes and hair would reek, and my eyes would be extremely unhappy. I also got quite bad eczema for a year. Now, I can go to a pub and the air can be... normal.

Hard to think of anything I really miss, bar certain aspects of lifestyle (I really loved my student days). In terms of media, perhaps the thriving UK comics scene from when I was a kid; although I can't imagine me delving much into Nutty and Whizzer & Chips these days, it would have been fun for mini-G, rather than endless bags of tat with a comic mostly full of puzzles inside.

[TordelBack]

I was in a construction site hut for teabreak the other day, and the whole crew were (illegally) smoking. Now this would have been a normal day for all of my 20s, when 3/4 or more of my colleagues seemed to chain smoke, but dear grud after well over a decade's break it was utterly vile.

I miss having loads of kids comics to choose from on the newsagents shelf, I miss Clement Freud, Derek Nimmo and Kenneth Williams on Just a Minute, I miss my old dogs and I miss my grandparents' generation... Everything else about the past was inferior.

[Dandontdare]

I miss :
reasonable rents/house prices
doorstep milk deliveries in bottles
local pubs on every street corner - in my old home town (Blackburn) and my current home (Hulme in manchester) virtually all the "locals" have gone - the smoking ban is one of the factors behind that.

Most of the things I miss however fall into the category of "wasn't life simpler before..." mobile phones, computers, multiple TV channels etc. I'm not saying life isn't better with these things but with great choice comes great headaches!

[Booboo100268]

Ahhh...Nostalgia, it ain't what it used to be!

[Booboo100268]

Just revisiting all the old progs after a lengthy hiatus (see welcome to the board) and couldn't help but smile at the adverts from back then.

Loads of ads from Woolworths (!) selling fishing gear, kites, roller-skates etc. Rayleigh bikes and Airfix models.

A far cry from kids today (First kids today reference, do I win £5?)

[IndigoPrime]

doorstep milk deliveries in bottles

Once I got to uni, I never saw the point in milk delivery. The stuff from the shop lasted longer and was just as good. I recall the guy who was doing presumably the last deliveries in our town used to drop the milk at around 2am. That must have been lovely in the summer for those ordering it.

local pubs on every street corner - in my old home town (Blackburn) and my current home (Hulme in manchester) virtually all the "locals" have gone - the smoking ban is one of the factors behind that.

Yeah, the former of those is a good point. The latter... I've seen plenty of arguments pointing at predatory and shameful tactics by breweries having the worst effect.

Most of the things I miss however fall into the category of "wasn't life simpler before..." mobile phones, computers, multiple TV channels etc. I'm not saying life isn't better with these things but with great choice comes great headaches!

Although I have nostalgia for old media, I don't really have any for media access. I used to wait 10 minutes for a game to possibly load on my C64, but can load it instantly today in an emulator. Old mobile phones were usability horrors, and also self-contained to the point you ended up with several different sets of contact lists. (And then you'd get a new phone and have to set up half the stuff from scratch again.)

Telly is another thing where I don't miss the old days. Having to be there or you miss it. Ugh. Once we got a dog, who wanted to go for a wee the SECOND a show started, we were so grateful for our catch-up PVR. Pause live telly! Imagine! Now we have a toddler, the very notion of having to only watch at set times doesn't bear thinking about. In fact, I'm fast losing any patience for all traditional telly (bar the BBC) and even shiny discs. Adverts? Pfft. Sitting through two minutes of copyright bollocks before watching a film? No thanks.

[Tiplodocus]

Anyone else miss things from the old days that aren't around any more?

No.

[CalHab]

Sitting through two minutes of copyright bollocks before watching a film? No thanks.

After having to rewind the video tape as well.

[Hawkmumbler]

I've smoked...'counts on fingers'...5 cig's* in my life. Each time I was already pissed out of my skull, only for me to sober up the next morning and wonder how anyone could be addicted to the wretched things.

I've never smoked weed, falling on the autistic spectrum I fear for what lasting reprucussions this mostly harmless narcotic could inflict on me. I'm not saying others shouldn't, do what ever you want, but i'm not risking some kind of extreme anxiety attack and a come down harder than the Berlin Wall collapse just for a cheap (HA!) high.

[Dandontdare]

Most of the things I miss however fall into the category of "wasn't life simpler before..." mobile phones, computers, multiple TV channels etc. I'm not saying life isn't better with these things but with great choice comes great headaches!

Although I have nostalgia for old media, I don't really have any for media access. I used to wait 10 minutes for a game to possibly load on my C64, but can load it instantly today in an emulator. Old mobile phones were usability horrors, and also self-contained to the point you ended up with several different sets of contact lists. (And then you'd get a new phone and have to set up half the stuff from scratch again.)

C64? Mobile phones? We have a different definition of 'the old days' - I'm talking about when a Pong console was cutting edge, and the only mobile phones were attached to a briefcase!

[shaolin_monkey]

i'm not risking some kind of extreme anxiety attack and a come down harder than the Berlin Wall collapse just for a cheap (HA!) high.

I miss the Berlin Wall.  I was there months before it came down.  It was ace.

[Hawkmumbler]

i'm not risking some kind of extreme anxiety attack and a come down harder than the Berlin Wall collapse just for a cheap (HA!) high.

I miss the Berlin Wall.  I was there months before it came down.  It was ace.

Remember the good old days of the soviet union? 

[IndigoPrime]

After having to rewind the video tape as well.

The current fascination with cassettes some people have astounds me. I get the thinking with vinyl—the 'warmth' of the sound (even if that's down to the limitations of the medium); the fascination with the object; the process of playing. But tapes were always bloody awful: crap quality; horrible to use; irritatingly linear in nature; prone to getting eaten. I don't miss my stereo munching a favourite album at all.