banana sandwiches
Bulgarian wine (Bull’s Blood)
cigarette dispensers (you put them out at cocktail parties)
cocktail cigarettes (extra-long, in different colours) (Cocktail Sobranies still avail)
cocktail matches (extra-long, in different colours)
complaining about all this computer jargon that’s polluting our language (80s)
deep lace borders on Catholic vestments (and altar cloths) (Led outraged Victorians to call them “priests in petticoats”.)
dried lotus seed pods
drinks called Something Cup
embrocation (the Ralgex of its day)
ginger cake (with bits of crystallised ginger)
green pasta
having conniption fits about CRB checks (and claiming that they would make ordinary life utterly impossible)
humiliation humour (popular when I was young – back now unfortunately.)
mimeographs, jellygraphs, comptometers (whatever they were)
parchment lampshades with fake medieval writing/silhouettes of the Manhattan skyline/silhouettes of minarets, palmtrees and camels
people who said that silent films were better than talkies, that black and white films were better than colour, that b/w telly was better than colour
polenta
sardine sandwichessuggestions that we should make bangles and tumblers out of old wine bottles (you can get a bottle cutter from Artfire – don't try this at home)
Swiss braid (it may be having a moment)
taking all the packaging off your shopping at the checkout, and handing it back to the cashier saying “I don’t need this”. (I suspect nobody ever did.)
that 1854 speech by Chief Seattle ("Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold..." Found to be made up much later, like Desiderata, or "Go Placidly...")
toasting forks
tomato sandwiches
trickle-down theory (like the Bilbao Effect – build iconic building, area will regenerate itself)
uniform incorporating bicorne hats with egrets’ feathers
More here, and links to the rest.
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