baked apples
blue green algae, green lipped mussel (they were good for you somehow)
cappuccino machines
croquettes
dishmops
fancy vodka flavoured with buffalo grass etc
focaccia
happy murals (sunflowers, children from several ethnic groups) on the sides of libraries. They failed to change the world, were kitsch, sentimental and inept, and have been whitewashed over.
hotpot
Kekulé’s ring (very fashionable in the 80s because it proved inspiration is better than rational thought)
Long personal phone calls at work. Learning all about someone else’s life by earwigging their long personal phone calls at work. Long conversations at work about everybody’s personal life.
oval fingernails
palm-tops and PDAs (that you operated with a little toothpick type thing)
perspex
pesto
psychedelic singles with camp British vocals and brass bands (60s)
Tibetan singing bowls
wedge-heeled espadrilles (utterly 80s)
More here, and links to the rest.
What a wonderful list of hitherto-unconsidered trifles!
ReplyDeletePerhaps we in the provinces are another country, and we do things differently, but not quite all the things on your list have yet vanished from our lives.
First: Zubrowka, the Polish vodka flavoured with bison grass, has not vanished. I've been drinking it on and off since my teens; I love its deliciously delicate flavour - almost like a very subtle taste of vanilla. Old age prevents me from swigging it in quantity, but I love a tiny glass of it now and then.
Next, focaccia and pesto - both are still around, even in London: I saw Jamie Oliver use both in a 30-minute supper he prepared in a telly programme the other day. (Incidentally, those meals may take Jamie 30 minutes to cook, but for me it's more like two hours.)
I recently made a hotpot, with boned shoulder of lamb cut in slices, red wine, onions and mushrooms.
ReplyDeleteKekulé’s ring is still very fashionable among chemists; it is said to resonate because the six carbon atoms seem to share the electrons in their outermost shells.
I meant the story of how Kekulé "dreamed" the benzene ring sitting on the top deck of a bus (a 73 to Victoria). (And apparently Babbage dreamed up the computer while dozing in a library.) It was the "it just came to me" story that was so dominant in the 80s. Rational thought was not cool.
ReplyDeletebaked apples - especially with sultanas, cinnamon and Demerara sugar? Might as well ask what happened to Demerara sugar. Not missed.
ReplyDeleteblue green algae, green lipped mussel (they were good for you somehow) - Blue green algae is still fermenting away. Jury still out whether they're Rilly Bad because of the cyanotoxins or Rilly Good because of some mystic nonsense. Green lipped mussels have escaped the Rilly Bad rap, but are as unfashionable as coltsfoot cigarettes.
cappuccino machines - have joined percolators in the coffee bar valhalla
croquettes - we spotted they looked like something that a medium-sized mammal would pass, and moved on?
dishmops - were these ever popular?
fancy vodka flavoured with buffalo grass etc - now replaced by fancy gin flavoured by posh botanicals. This week's haul includes one bottle of iris flavoured gin, one of pomegranate ditto.
focaccia - morphed into ciabatta
Happy murals (sunflowers, children from several ethnic groups) on the sides of libraries etc? They failed to change the world, were kitsch, sentimental and inept, and have been whitewashed over. - see also, geometric 50s neo-futurist murals. Could be seen as ever-reducing cultural ripples from WW2, if one has the guts.
hotpot - see also fondue.
Kekulé’s ring (very fashionable in the 80s because it proved inspiration is better than rational thought) - the last gasp of the Freudian subconscious? See also - LSD-inspired insights.
Long personal phone calls at work. Learning all about someone else’s life by earwigging their long personal phone calls at work. -- Email/IM.
Long conversations at work about everybody’s personal life. - Email/IM
oval fingernails - Pass. Bloke.
palm-tops and PDAs (that you operated with a little toothpick type thing) - Mobile phones.
perspex - Still here. Typing on perspex keyboard.
pesto - People realised it wasn't very nice. Esp. on focaccia.
psychedelic singles with camp British vocals and brass bands (60s) - pop moves on! (Although I have just found Kenny Everett's "And Now For A Little Train Number", which is his camp psychedelic brass band backed song about trainspotting in Birmingham, and consider it ripe for revival.)
Tibetan singing bowls - still available in Glastonbury.
wedge-heeled espadrilles (utterly 80s) - er, this is a shoe reference and I have the wrong chromosomes to comment. See oval fingernails comment passim.
Lovely! I like those geometric 50s murals and there's still one in the City. (My mum painted murals in workers' canteens in the War.)
ReplyDelete