Tag-Archive for » nostalgia «
I’ve not posted for a while, just been one of those times, too busy, too tired, too pre-occupied; whatever other reason I can come up with for not being actually productive on anything.
Anyhoo, as a result of a series of random conversations in work (and when I say random, I do mean random – that’s one of the great things about where I work), I challenged one of my colleagues to the Desert Island C90 Challenge.
I partook in this a year and a half ago and found it great fun – you should try it; If you could only take one c90 cassette (remember them kids?) of music to listen to for the rest of your life, what would you put on it?
Today I had a moment of real nostalgia.
Following a random conversation (we have a lot of them at work – it’s great) about the above product some time ago, one of my esteemed colleagues in some sort of Twilight Zone-style coincidence/conspiracy happened across the stuff at a visit to, of all places, a garden centre!
It was in small clear-plastic pots, as opposed to the original packaging, illustrated above. It looked more like some kind of illicit drug, I suspected Methadrone, given the powdered form, garden centre connection and recent publicity.
This is perhaps a slightly unusual post for me; a sport, or more specifically, a football post.
Back in the day, my father-in-law used to play junior football. By all accounts he was a bit special as a left back and always been a big fan of football at all levels.
We knew he played for a few clubs before hanging up his boots to raise his family. Money was tight and a steady job had to take priority over his passion for the game.
We were going through some boxes of old photos recently and happened upon something genuinely interesting from 60 years ago…
I was on a training course today and, off topic, was chatting to the trainer. He was telling me he was at the Scottish Fashion Awards ‘do at the weekend because his pal was one of the organisers.
I thought that all sounded all fine and well, until he told me who was sitting at his table. To have Clare Grogan sitting there would probably have been interesting enough; she’d be a good laugh, but he also had Siouxsie Sioux there too. Apparently she was dressed in a tight green catsuit and full Siouxsie makeup. Class.
I saw a sight last night I haven’t seen for what must be over 20-odd years. Driving down the road, I saw a small group of children dragging a home made bogey up a hill by the steering-string. I have to say, the sight of it really took me back to my childhood. And yes, deep down inside, I really wanted a shot of it.
Now, for those of you that are not familiar with the term ‘bogey’, I am referring to what we in the West of Scotland called a home made death-trap of a vehicle. Folks from other geographies may variously describe it as a ‘guider’, ‘trolley’, ‘kart’, ‘soap-box cart’, ‘mini-kart’, ‘box-car’ and probably many other terms.
The idea was simple, you made your bogey out of whatever pieces of scrap you could find, then you found the steepest hill closest to where you lived and you hurled yourself down said incline, atop your home made death-trap. Making it to the bottom of the hill was a triumph. Making it to the bottom uninjured was a miracle.
After my recent spat on the M8 I had to get a new car. All that thinking and talking about cars got me thinking about how many cars I’ve had since I started driving and some of the stories that went with them all.
Can you remember all the cars you ever owned?
warning: nostalgia and petrol-head terms in the following post…
The first car I had was a Mk1 Ford Escort. It was silver with a purple roof when I got it (nice eh?) but I painted it black, with a brush. As the time, I reckoned it looked great, there were no brush strokes, it looked like a professional job… for a while, until the oil based paint got scuffed and started peeling off in strips.
The car itself was held together with cataloy and gun-gum but it was a learning experience and allowed me to hone my skills on rust removal, filling and sanding, oh yes the sanding.
Eventually I peeled all the paint off and resprayed it, with proper primer and black paint this time – it was sauce. Eventually sold it, when it failed its MOT, for £20. Well, we are talking the early eighties here, twenty quid was over 40 pints in the union bar.
I bought a packet of Polo mints today, when filling up my car at the petrol station. “So what”, you may think, but I was astonished to find that they are 50p a pack now (other currencies are available).
Now grantedly it may be a while since I bought a pack of Polos on their own and noticed the price, but what’s happening to the world? When I think back to the ‘old days’, was when I was a kid, I remember they were 10p a pack, at the very most.
Oh yes! This is what eBay is all about. You remember something from the past, you have a look on eBay, place a speculative bid and lo and behold you win it. Then the anticipation as you wait for it to arrive, with a little bit of doubt creeping in as you wonder if will be as good as you remember it. Will the mists of time cloud your perspective and will it turn out to be really rubbish?
Late last week, after a conversation in work, I placed exactly such a speculative bid, won it at a rock bottom price and it arrived yesterday. I had kind-of half-forgotten about it, what with all that’s going on elsewhere just now, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the packet drop through the door.
Hogmanay is a dying tradition. Nobody seems that interested in it anymore.
People still seem determined to have a party to celebrate the dawning of a New Year, but it’s really because they think they have to, it’s more like just going through the motions. I mean, we’ve just had a major celebration-fest of over-indulgance less than a week before, it’s not as if we’ve not done anything for a while
Even the ‘Last Call’ and ‘Only An Excuse’ that seemed so good in years gone by appear desperately old and tired; well past their sell by date. And all that tartan and piper nonsense, as if us Scots have exclusivity to this time of year (surely they don’t broadcast all that nonsense elsewhere).
It’s not that I don’t like a party, I can get down with my bad self as good as the next man, it’s just the reason and timing of it I have a problem with.
Getting old? Aye probably.
Do it again? Maybe not, cocoa and bed for me next year!