melons, cheese and sex with teenage girls
all a bit rubbish in the 1980s

melons were particularly disappointing
(alright alright, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 19:25, 5 replies)

I'd just like the chance to find out
The Incredible Pop Will Eat Itself were supposed to release an album in 1996. It was recorded and a couple of instrumental teaser tracks were released, but then the band split up, the whole thing was shelved and that was that...until I got a facebook message a couple of months ago telling me that "A Lick of the Old Cassette Box" had been remastered by none other than Clint Mansell himself and was going to finally be released on 26th August 2013. I ordered my copy and this morning I rushed into work, expecting to find a CD-shaped package on my desk. No such luck, and checking the website it seems the release date has now been pushed back to 9th September.

Gah, this is turning out to be the longest 17 years ever.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 17:10, 39 replies)

Next we'll have Glen Campbell screaming "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 17:02, 1 reply)

Butterflies.
They're not what they used to be.
( Muns, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 16:38, 2 replies)

Remember when it was very very cool?
Friends Reunited.
(fatboybubba, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 15:04, 2 replies)

Split-screen multiplayer of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark.

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 14:38, 5 replies)

If dinosaurs were so great,
why are they all dead?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 13:47, 14 replies)

I remember when this was all fields, as far as the eye could see.

Then, it was factories, chimneys belching smoke, and noise to wake the dead.

Now it's all fields again...

.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 13:44, 1 reply)

Peter Kay's observations about the past are much better than they used to be

(Eukanuba, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 12:25, 8 replies)

Punk was actually shit.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 12:19, 50 replies)

THAT IS NICE THAT HE APOLOGIZED, EXCEPT HE ONLY APOLOGIZED BECAUSE OF THE UPROAR AFTER THE FACT.
SO, HE CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF BECAUSE I DON'T FORGIVE HIM. I WOULD NOT WANT THIS SHITFUCKTARD TO BE COUNTY DOG CATHER, BECAUSE I WOULD NOT TRUST HIM WITH DOGS !!!!!
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 11:41, 7 replies)

TV itself
Not the programs - that's been covered by other users - but the technology of media delivery itself.

Imagine, if you can, a world with just three channels. Channels which only broadcast for a limited number of hours in the day; for the rest of the time there was a test-card, if you were lucky, or a blank screen with a high-pitched whine if not. I remember watching the "Information for TV Service Engineers" in the morning, simply because it was a cartoon. And the Open University programs, when there was nothing else to watch, which was large parts of the day.[1]

Now also remember that there were no DVDs or videos to buy or rent, no box sets with killer extras, no +1 channels, no catch-up services or channels endlessly repeating classic shows. Repeats themselves were frowned upon; it was seen as "cheating" for a station to re-show a program. You couldn't pause or rewind, you couldn't Sky+ the series... If you had to go out when your favourite program was on, that was it: you'd missed it. And then you couldn't join in with the discussion of the program next day at school / work. You had lost your place in the social paradigm; you were a pariah. I remember the family got stuck in traffic, and missed the first 10 minutes of the first episode of Blake's 7 -- it was probably 15 years before I finally saw those 10 minutes.

So, next time you settle down to watch the director's cut with cast commentary, while the other half catches up with their shows on their iPad next to you, and your PVR is recording the next series, send up a silent prayer to the TV Gods.

[1] Actually, the OU had a lasting effect on me: I saw the Computer Programmers sitting at the consoles in the background, sporting bushy beards and wearing denim flares, rather than suits - even though they were At Work! - and thought: Yep, that's the career for me...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 11:39, 28 replies)

Two WHOLE episodes of a TV show on VHS tape.
For £13.99.
That is all.
( The Silent Channel is getting his recommended 5-a-day, Mon 2 Sep 2013, 11:07, 11 replies)

You used to have to use your imagination
When having a wank.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Mon 2 Sep 2013, 0:02, 5 replies)

Okay I'm old.
But the 70's were pretty shit until Mrs Thatcher moved into No.10*

*Relaxes and stands by for incoming. Any comment made by anyone born post '79 will just confirm you a a cunt.
(Docofair, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 23:37, 12 replies)

Gladstone, right, he thought Homer was blind, or at least colour blind, because he didn't understand how the ancient greek language described colours.
So there's no real point in reading anything old.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 21:50, 14 replies)

Conservatism is all in the knees
at least the small 'c' kind.

If our interactions with our environment can shape our world view, resistance to change then must come with ageing joints. Why else would people keep insisting that the past was much better unless they associate change with having to get up.

If getting up comes with the sound effects of creaking knees and breathing out with a 'hurrrooomph' sound, no wonder people would rather remain seated even if it means looking back with rose tinted glasses.

That's my thoughts on the matter anyway
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 18:54, 7 replies)

I love horses, best of all the animals
I love horses, they're my friends.
(Eukanuba, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 18:34, 3 replies)

After a period of some years I recently found some Twiglets in a British food import store.
excitedly proclaiming them to be fantastic and delicious beyond belief I bought 2 bags.
The GF declared them to be awful on first taste and I have to say I agree.
My memory of twiglets is one of strong savoury marmitesque delight, now ruined for ever by shovelling a handful of dry shitty sticks into my eager gob.

Not so pickled onion Monster Munch which at least took the taste away for a few hours.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 15:06, 13 replies)

Kunt. And his gang.
/ac
( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 14:22, 2 replies)

First?
www.xkcd.com/1258/
( Ghoti Fingers, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 11:39, 4 replies)

Having watched a bunch of videos
on sevcom for a bit of nostalgia - CGI video production has come a long way.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 10:10, 1 reply)

We had a project in year 3 (maybe 1980-81).
We had to make "Something from the Future That We Will All Be Using".
I made a phone (made out of cardboard) that had a special antenna, with a design such that you could fold the screen onto the keypad so that it would be small enough to fit in your pocket.
My idea was that each portable telephone would have it's own number - like normal telephones, but they would transceive thru special antennas that everyone could have built on their roofs.
My teacher at the time - Ms. Robertson laughed. She said to me - "Who would want to have to answer their phone where ever they went at whatever time of the day or night?"

Well. Suck it Ms. Robertson.

On the other hand it's somewhat telling that the first thing I do when I leave work is turn my phone to silent or often off and rarely look at it again till the following morning.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Sun 1 Sep 2013, 6:19, 7 replies)

Read a book as a young child all about what's inside things - an egg, a castle under siege and so on.
Lots of very simple drawings in just orange, black and white. The page that fascinated me most was a cross-section of a volcano. You could see the lava moving up from deep underground to burst out of the cone, and a sinister little side-volcano where a smaller lava-stream was pouring out.

I loved that chapter and it started my lifelong interest in volcanoes. I'd read everything I could about them and even now I record Discovery volcano programmes to watch over and over.

Anyway.. about 10 years ago I came across it again, second hand. It had a stamp inside which indicated that it might even have been the very same book! How exciting.

But wait, what's this? Basic drawings, hardly any text, and what an unrealistic, flat-looking volcano!

I must have been very young when I first read it. I'm not really disappointed though - it set off my imagination, as books're supposed to. I will never part with it again.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 31 Aug 2013, 23:44, 16 replies)

hmmmm.....
I would have to say Carlton Television.

We loved Westward, and TSW for Gus Honeybun, then Westcountry took over - which was disappointing but at least they were still local. then the kings of shitemasters Carlton took over our beloved ITV station. apparently having our local news broadcast from Bristol (we live in Cornwall) is fine. and then you have ITV complaining that the audience figures have dropped in Devon and Cornwall by over 70%!

What the frigg thought that moving our local news to over 140 miles away we would just sit there and take it? we all started to watch Spotlight on the BBC instead (which now coincidently has the highest percentage viewing figures of all the regional BBC news shows.

rant over.
(TIMBIonline available for any passing drunk sailor, Sat 31 Aug 2013, 18:33, 17 replies)