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Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

Killingworth

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Referring to a phone as "the blower" as in "Give me a minute and I'll get the boss on the blower". The word is/was British slang originating from the 1920s that refers to speaking tubes, which were mechanical precursors to the telephone. To activate these, users had to blow into the tube to make a whistle sound at the other end to alert the recipient.
My uncle was a GP in the East Riding, sole practice. There was a brass mouthpiece beside the surgery door and a tube leading to his bedside where the other end had a whistle. Much as we kids tried we couldn't make it blow, or hear each other through the speaking tube!

They may have had similar contraptions on ships to communicate from the bridge to the engine room?
 
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EdinRH

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Referring to a phone as "the blower" as in "Give me a minute and I'll get the boss on the blower". The word is/was British slang originating from the 1920s that refers to speaking tubes, which were mechanical precursors to the telephone. To activate these, users had to blow into the tube to make a whistle sound at the other end to alert the recipient.
On a vaguely related note, cash registers in shops used to have a bell that sounded when each item was processed with a louder ring when the total was pressed. A relic of this is the occasional continued use of "ring an item" for scanning an item and "ring the total" for obtaining the total due.

Visitors whose first language is not English who find themselves being told "don't put your card in the reader until I've rung the total" have trouble understanding what is meant. This also occurs when cashiers use the name of the letter O to represent a zero in an amount due, saying "four O seven" for "four pounds and seven pence" for example as these colloquialisms are not taught in English classes abroad and do not correspond to any terms used in their native languages.
 

Silent

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I know this isn’t the oldest internet but I would say late 00’s and even early 10s internet.

In this period the comment “Share your address” during an argument seemed common. I don’t know if this is more personal than opinion but also the online communities I was in, particularly on YouTube, seemed closer knit as in we know each members names and had arguments and so on, even email addresses. Nowadays I think it’s more that there is a big influencer or a few big influencers and the audience has a more para social relationship with them. Also I think the early and mid 10s was a period of excessive, cringy photo taking. Maybe live feeds have taken over this though.

It seems new photography tries to look less artificially filtered whereas in the 10s, it was cool to make a photo look noticeably filtered.

Even though this is a forum, forums seemed more common 10 years ago.
 

GordonT

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Old-school gym/physical education teachers, including some who exhibited psychopathic tendencies. Pupils "forced" to climb a 30 foot rope with a life saving 2 inch thick mat below.

Hotels with a compulsory dress code e.g. "Gentlemen are required to wear a jacket and tie to Dinner".
I believe the Inverlochy Castle Hotel near Fort William/Ben Nevis still specifies that jackets must be worn by men at dinner and keeps a supply on racks for the temporary use of anyone in need.
 
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dgl

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Something I saw at a local car boot sale, an AM only care stereo, made by Philips for General Motors so probably from a Vauxhall/Bedford vehicle. Interestingly it's a digital tuning model, so there is a small display, something I wouldn't have thought existed for the European market, and would have had FM as well but there was only a L/M switch which I assume switched between LW and MW bands.

If my memory is correct it's the same as this model being sold on eBay,
 

GordonT

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Something I saw at a local car boot sale, an AM only car stereo, made by Philips for General Motors so probably from a Vauxhall/Bedford vehicle.
Vaguely recall that they (and other models of their day) were of passing interest to thieves who subsequently sold them in pubs.
 

dgl

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Vaguely recall that they (and other models of their day) were of passing interest to thieves who subsequently sold them in pubs.
Some were, one of my Uncles supposedly could get you a radio cheap if you wanted one, luckily we don't have anything to do with him.
Doubt the AM only ones in the late 80's/early nineties were that desirable to thieves though.
 

Ashley Hill

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I was stuck behind a car and caravan today on an A road chuntering along at 40mph with a queue of traffic behind it. I remember travelling around years ago when this was quite common, it doesn’t seem to happen that often nowadays.
 

PG

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I was stuck behind a car and caravan today on an A road chuntering along at 40mph with a queue of traffic behind it. I remember travelling around years ago when this was quite common, it doesn’t seem to happen that often nowadays.
Possibly fewer caravans with the rise in motorhome numbers. I can't recall off-the-top-of-my-head if caravan speed limits used to be lower than they are now?
 

Ashley Hill

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Possibly fewer caravans with the rise in motorhome numbers. I can't recall off-the-top-of-my-head if caravan speed limits used to be lower than they are now?
I think it was 60mph. Getting stuck behind a tin snail was always a fear when in a hurry. Often the car immediately behind was to scared to overtake impeding anyone else to try and causing a tailback.
 

Killingworth

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I think it was 60mph. Getting stuck behind a tin snail was always a fear when in a hurry. Often the car immediately behind was to scared to overtake impeding anyone else to try and causing a tailback.
Brings back memories of heading up the 3 lane A6 over Shap in the days before the M6 opened, grinding along at what seemed no more than 10-15 mph as a long chain of trucks crawled past each other in both available lanes. In those days many would park up in Kendal, Penrith or Carlisle to sleep over night.
 
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The exile

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Possibly fewer caravans with the rise in motorhome numbers. I can't recall off-the-top-of-my-head if caravan speed limits used to be lower than they are now?
Chances are that the car towing the caravan had a lot less “oomph” to get the thing moving. Certainly many of them weren’t really up to the job as a survey of the hard shoulder of the M5 on a summer Saturday would testify (the bits you could see from the much more interesting train services of course!)
 

Trackman

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I think it was 60mph. Getting stuck behind a tin snail was always a fear when in a hurry. Often the car immediately behind was to scared to overtake impeding anyone else to try and causing a tailback.
In the 70s I am sure it was a blanket 50 MPH limit. (didn't they have stickers on the back?)
I have a relative who was a traffic cop, The only time he thought was a goner was on the motorway, and it involved a car and a caravan going into the central reservation, this is from someone who goes on shouts with possible firearms etc.. He told the story actually on a motorway saying 'I am going nowhere near him!'

Some were, one of my Uncles supposedly could get you a radio cheap if you wanted one, luckily we don't have anything to do with him.
Doubt the AM only ones in the late 80's/early nineties were that desirable to thieves though.

Early 70's this was the standard fare, I think most of the cars I went in had one or a Motorola similar.
Note MW is in Metres not kHz.


motorola-114-mw-lw-1971-2--fm-yes-165-(2)-538-p.jpg
ChatGPT description
his appears to be a vintage Motorola car radio, likely from the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Notable features:
  • Chrome faceplate with a polished, classic automotive look.
  • Two large rotary knobs on the left and right, likely for volume/on-off and tuning.
  • Analog tuning dial in the center with frequency markings.
  • It appears to support MW (Medium Wave/AM) and LW (Long Wave) bands, indicated by the frequency scales and the “M” and “L.”
  • Push-button preset selectors along the bottom (five buttons), used to quickly tune favorite stations.
  • Black-and-chrome styling typical of radios designed for classic cars.
  • The design is very symmetrical and minimalist, common in factory-installed radios of that era.
 

Ashley Hill

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Watching a 1989 episode of Bullseye where one of the prizes is a Hornby HST train set. (And a Mini Metro which the winning team also won).
 

GordonT

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This is a bit subjective but it seems to me that larger companies/industries up until perhaps the 1970s had a fair number of "non jobs" within their employee establishment. An example was folk whose job consisted of producing reports/statistical returns which were neither read nor required. Another example was specific managers with personal assistants in circumstances where the latter performed all the essential work of the former.
 

SargeNpton

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Having seen some in Netherlands and Belgium last week...

Roller towels in toilets in the UK. Mostly hot air dryers and paper towels these days.
 

styles

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Having seen some in Netherlands and Belgium last week...

Roller towels in toilets in the UK. Mostly hot air dryers and paper towels these days.
Nottingham University King's Meadow Campus (the old Carlton TV studios) still have these. They do also have hand dryers and paper towels.

Surely the roller towels are the least hygienic of the three.
 

PeterC

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Nottingham University King's Meadow Campus (the old Carlton TV studios) still have these. They do also have hand dryers and paper towels.

Surely the roller towels are the least hygienic of the three.
The British Library uses roller towels. I don't see the problem with them as long as you have enough common sense to pull down a clean section
 

GordonT

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Roller towels in toilets in the UK.
Was it this type of provision which sometimes had the legend "Advance Towelmaster" inscribed on the holder?
It attracted some people to scrawl something along the lines of "... and identify yourself" after the words.
(Amazing the huge amounts of dross which the human memory is able to retain!).
 

SHD

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Having visited London with the kids a few weeks ago, I was intrigued by the fact that there are still public telephones on the streets. And I heard a tone when picking up the receiver, so they are probably operational. Who uses them for any other purpose than sheltering from the rain?
One thing has changed since my trips to London as a teenager in the 1990s though, they used to be covered inside with flyers showing promising images of enticing ladies.
 

WesternLancer

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Having visited London with the kids a few weeks ago, I was intrigued by the fact that there are still public telephones on the streets. And I heard a tone when picking up the receiver, so they are probably operational. Who uses them for any other purpose than sheltering from the rain?
Not in London I imagine, but I used one recently when in an area with atrocious mobile reception - tho that was a rural area.

to call a landline they are very cheap - 60p for 209 minutes IIRC - I don't really understand why BT has not made them cheap to call mobile numbers as that would be more useful when in an area where making an outgoing call by mobile is tricky. With decreasing numbers of people having land lines at home it means the payphone is not affordable to call a mobile phone so it reduced use and thus income.
Unless there is a tech reason for the charges?

Some of them you can send SMS text messages too I think (or certainly could not that long ago) which is actually quite useful

One thing has changed since my trips to London as a teenager in the 1990s though, they used to be covered inside with flyers showing promising images of enticing ladies.
I think the suppliers of the services have moved to advertising using other media these days ;)

A whole set of jobs lost for the people who went round placing the flyers I guess.

I wonder if anyone kept a stock of the flyers for use as social history or indeed as retro TV props etc....
 

Tester

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to call a landline they are very cheap - 60p for 209 minutes IIRC - I don't really understand why BT has not made them cheap to call mobile numbers as that would be more useful when in an area where making an outgoing call by mobile is tricky. With decreasing numbers of people having land lines at home it means the payphone is not affordable to call a mobile phone so it reduced use and thus income.
Unless there is a tech reason for the charges?

Interestingly, since September 2022 Australian payphones are free to use, to both landlines and mobiles within Australia.

Not daft, if you think it through!
 

WesternLancer

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Interestingly, since September 2022 Australian payphones are free to use, to both landlines and mobiles within Australia.

Not daft, if you think it through!
Interesting - and v useful.

I note BT are decommissioning more of them as part of the digital switchover of all landlines (or whatever it is they are doing to analogue home phones) - 2 boxes near me have had their kit removed even though they are K series red phone boxes that happen to be listed at Grade II so BT still have an obligation to maintain the kiosk as it's a listed building.
 

dgl

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BT are replacing some telephone boxes with advertising screens that have a built in phone and WiFi hot-spot.
I believe the phones are free to use being paid for by selling advertising space.
I believe Amscreen also do similar devices.
 

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