Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[DelW]

And I bet this system is robust too.

Difficult for anyone to hack into as well.

 

[dgl]

I bet a lot of the service manuals and related material is online though.

 

[Bald Rick]

I bet a lot of the service manuals and related material is online though.

Good chance they will watch a youtube video to see how to fix it!

 

[35B]

Difficult for anyone to hack into as well.

And also difficult to trace if the paper goes AWOL. Which kind of makes me think of any number of eticket related threads...

 

[AY1975]

My father was a surprisingly early adopter of RBS ATMs, IIRC you inserted a punch card (and presumably a PIN) and got a plastic tray pre-filled with £10 (a fiver and five singles?) in return. By the time I went out into the big wide world in 1986, ATMs were pretty ubiquitous - so when I then went off to Germany for a year in 1988 it came as a bit of a shock to revert to the pre-machine age.

Were there only very few or no ATMs in Germany in the late 1980s then?

By the time I was on my year in Germany as an exchange student in the mid 1990s they did have ATMs there but when I opened an account with the Sparkasse bank I had to wait about ten weeks for my bank card to arrive (despite being told that it would arrive in about two to three weeks). Until that time I had to withdraw cash over the counter and could only do so at the branch where I had set up my account, unlike in the UK where even in pre-ATM days you could withdraw cash at any branch of your bank as I recall.

Another thing that people often used to use when travelling abroad was traveller's cheques. You had to sign them when you collected them and countersign them when you cashed them. I think you could get them in Pounds Sterling, US Dollars or Deutschmarks, and probably some other major currencies such as Japanese Yens. I don't think I've ever used one this century but I used them a lot in the 1990s. These days people mostly just pay by card or contactless payment, or if they want cash, they just use their credit or debit card (or travel money card) to withdraw money at an ATM.

I think you can still get traveller's cheques, and they are supposed to be valid indefinitely. I suppose it might become increasingly difficult to find somewhere that will cash them with a lot of physical bureaus de change and bank branches having closed, though. I'm also not sure if you can still cash traveller's cheques that were issued in a now defunct currency such as Deutschmarks, although hopefully they'll still honour them and cash them for the equivalent amount in Euros (or whatever the local currency is where you are).

 

[najaB]

I think you can still get traveller's cheques, and they are supposed to be valid indefinitely. I suppose it might become increasingly difficult to find somewhere that will cash them with a lot of physical bureaus de change and bank branches having closed, though. I'm also not sure if you can still cash traveller's cheques that were issued in a now defunct currency such as Deutschmarks, although hopefully they'll still honour them and cash them for the equivalent amount in Euros (or whatever the local currency is where you are).

That took me down a little bit of a rabbit hole...

American Express was the biggest issuer of traveller's cheques, and they stopped issuing them at the end of 2020. They do remain valid, as noted above, but many banks have stopped redeeming them. If you still have some then you should be able to return them to the issuer for a refund, or through Amex directly. I'm not 100% sure of the situation where the denomination no longer exists, but I believe that Amex will still honour them.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

American Express was the biggest issuer of traveller's cheques, and they stopped issuing them at the end of 2020. They do remain valid, as noted above, but many banks have stopped redeeming them. If you still have some then you should be able to return them to the issuer for a refund, or through Amex directly. I'm not 100% sure of the situation where the denomination no longer exists, but I believe that Amex will still honour them.

Believe they can still be paid in to your bank account. Might not be straightforward if they're denominated in a different currency!

 

[GordonT]

Not completely disappeared but common courtesy from vehicle drivers appears to be on a downward trajectory especially where it would incur a slight delay of perhaps 20 seconds to show courtesy e.g. pausing when it is perfectly safe to do so in order to let another driver manoeuvre into or out of a "tight spot".
Indications that a display of common courtesy of this type is becoming perceived as being anachronistic include the displayer of courtesy being "parped" at by a less convivial third-party driver for whom a few seconds delay is beyond their tolerance span.

 

[najaB]

Believe they can still be paid in to your bank account. Might not be straightforward if they're denominated in a different currency!

It seems that very much depends on your bank. Barclays for example, say that they don't accept them any more unless denominated in Sterling:

From 31 December 2025, we will no longer accept foreign currency travellers’ cheques at any of our branches.

This is because most international payments are now electronic, making them quicker, more convenient and more secure than cheques.

Link: https://www.barclays.co.uk/travel/changes-to-our-travellers-cheque-service/

Whereas Natwest will accept US Dollar or Euro denominated travellers cheques that they originally issued:

There are some instances in which you can still deposit travellers cheques with us, which are outlined below:

• Only legacy NatWest issued travellers cheques can be deposited at any of our NatWest branches.
• Only US Dollar and Euro travellers cheques will be accepted.

Link: https://www.natwest.com/support-cen...l/can-i-order-or-cash-travellers-cheques.html

 

[3141]

That took me down a little bit of a rabbit hole...

American Express was the biggest issuer of traveller's cheques, and they stopped issuing them at the end of 2020. They do remain valid, as noted above, but many banks have stopped redeeming them. If you still have some then you should be able to return them to the issuer for a refund, or through Amex directly. I'm not 100% sure of the situation where the denomination no longer exists, but I believe that Amex will still honour them.

In the 1970s and 1980s, (and probably earlier, but I don't have experience of travellers' cheques from then), those in US dollars could be used in some parts of the world in much the same way as if they were cash. I recall being asked to show my passport, as a check that I was the genuine owner of the cheques I was paying with. They were extremely convenient, more so than some lesser-known currencies, as any that you hadn't used remained fully usable wherever you might go in the future.

 

[jfollows]

Not completely disappeared but common courtesy from vehicle drivers appears to be on a downward trajectory especially where it would incur a slight delay of perhaps 20 seconds to show courtesy e.g. pausing when it is perfectly safe to do so in order to let another driver manoeuvre into or out of a "tight spot".
Indications that a display of common courtesy of this type is becoming perceived as being anachronistic include the displayer of courtesy being "parped" at by a less convivial third-party driver for whom a few seconds delay is beyond their tolerance span.

On the contrary, I find too many drivers display “weak politeness” by unnecessarily letting other drivers pull out or similar, when they don’t have right of way, which is sometimes very confusing. I once had a driver stop to let me turn right, when I didn’t have right of way and there was nobody following the driver who stopped. I also had a driver in front of me to stop to let someone out of a side road when I was then forced to stop, but there was nobody following me at all.
However the same drivers often seem unaware of pedestrians or cyclists, and give them little quarter even when the pedestrian or cyclist has right of way.

 

[GordonT]

On the contrary, I find too many drivers display “weak politeness” by unnecessarily letting other drivers pull out or similar, when they don’t have right of way, which is sometimes very confusing.

Yes that is often an unsafe practice and not one I would condone, which is why my post was qualified with the words "when it is perfectly safe to do so".

 

[WesternLancer]

In the 1970s and 1980s, (and probably earlier, but I don't have experience of travellers' cheques from then), those in US dollars could be used in some parts of the world in much the same way as if they were cash. I recall being asked to show my passport, as a check that I was the genuine owner of the cheques I was paying with. They were extremely convenient, more so than some lesser-known currencies, as any that you hadn't used remained fully usable wherever you might go in the future.

Yes, certainly would be accepted in lots of shops, especially in places where tourists might be expected as the method of payment - either if the Travellers Cheques were in local currency or in a widely accepted currency like dollars. Back in the day I would tend to take some Travellers Cheques of each type (local currency and either sterling or US dollars)

I think the last lot I got was in about 2015, as a back up in case cards etc didn't work - there was a time not so long before that where my cards didn't have a chip in them as chips embedded in cards hadn't been fully rolled out yet here, but in France it had (or vice versa) and lots of places the card would not work and this caused no end of aggro in such shops just trying to buy modest things - apart from the shops diligent enough to get out the old paper swipe card machine - which was not that many of them.
Having travellers cheques to get cash with (or even pay with where accepted) had turned out to be really handy.
By 2015 though it wasn't really necessary - apart from to avoid card charges - which I suspect could have been avoided had I had a different sort of bank account.

I didn't realise AmEx had sopped doing them actually.

 

[bspahh]

Were there only very few or no ATMs in Germany in the late 1980s then?

By the time I was on my year in Germany as an exchange student in the mid 1990s they did have ATMs there but when I opened an account with the Sparkasse bank I had to wait about ten weeks for my bank card to arrive (despite being told that it would arrive in about two to three weeks). Until that time I had to withdraw cash over the counter and could only do so at the branch where I had set up my account, unlike in the UK where even in pre-ATM days you could withdraw cash at any branch of your bank as I recall.

In 1989 I worked in a village/town with about 3000 people, in the German equivalent of Lincolnshire. There was a Sparkasse which had an ATM. I used the ATM for a bit. I forget what happened - I might have forgotten the PIN - but I couldn't face the administration to fix it. Instead I would go in the branch, which had different opening hours each weekday, queued at one desk to fill in a form, and then got the cash from a second one. I could be the only customer in a large building, with 6-10 staff, and it would still take me 10 minutes to get my cash.

I once got a letter from the Sparkasse, and it took me 45 minutes with a dictionary to work out it was trying to sell me life insurance.

You *could* get a credit card from a German bank, but they didn't make it easy. I still had my UK one, which was much easier for travelling.

If a German bought some white goods, rather than using a credit card, they would fill in a form a bit like a one-off direct debit.

 

[AM9]

Yes that is often an unsafe practice and not one I would condone, which is why my post was qualified with the words "when it is perfectly safe to do so".

Ah, the 'perfectly' word, absolutely without any verification enabling criticism of everybody else. Nothing about human actions is perfect in any way, - except for one's own actions of course.

 

[jfollows]

In 1989 I worked in a village/town with about 3000 people, in the German equivalent of Lincolnshire. There was a Sparkasse which had an ATM. I used the ATM for a bit. I forget what happened - I might have forgotten the PIN - but I couldn't face the administration to fix it. Instead I would go in the branch, which had different opening hours each weekday, queued at once desk to fill in a form, and then got the cash from a second one. I could be the only customer in a large building, with 6-10 staff, and it would still take me 10 minutes to get my cash.

I once got a letter from the Sparkasse, and it took me 45 minutes with a dictionary to work out it was trying to sell me life insurance.

You *could* get a credit card from a German bank, but they didn't make it easy. I still had my UK one, which was much easier for travelling.

If a German bought some white goods, rather than using a credit card, they would fill in a form a bit like a one-off direct debit.

Before Boris and the rest of leaving the EU, I recall buying things from Germany on the “vorkasse” system which meant paying in advance before it would be shipped, it wasn’t complicated and only needed a transfer to a bank acount using the IBAN which was easy enough, but the option for paying by credit card wasn’t available. So less than ten years ago for sure. Now the retailer simply won’t ship to the UK because it’s too much hassle for them.

 

[AM9]

Before Boris and the rest of leaving the EU, I recall buying things from Germany on the “vorkasse” system which meant paying in advance before it would be shipped, it wasn’t complicated and only needed a transfer to a bank acount using the IBAN which was easy enough, but the option for paying by credit card wasn’t available. So less than ten years ago for sure. Now the retailer simply won’t ship to the UK because it’s too much hassle for them.

Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Killingworth]

Memories! Back in May 1982 my young son got his first Lloyds Bank Cashpoint card just before we made a motor trip in mainland Europe. He made his first withdrawal in French Francs at an ATM in Verdun.

I can't recall the year I stopped using travellers cheques but remember being caught out in Germany when I'd wrongly assumed I'd be able to pay with a card having done so in Britain for many years.

The answer for Germany and Switzerland (and I think also available in Belgium and Holland) was a Eurocheque book and card used together. Lloyds certainly issued them in England but I can't find an example of one of theirs. (They could be used like ordinary cheques in England.) The cheques and cards looked like these below - note these are specimens from Germany and Switzerland to a common pattern. My Lloyds card and cheques looked almost identical and I used them for several years before Germany caught up with card payments.

 

[styles]

For 16 year olds:

• Buying fags for 2 years
• Buying lottery tickets for 2 years
• (soon to be) buying fags at any point for the rest of your life

 

[whoosh]

On the contrary, I find too many drivers display “weak politeness” by unnecessarily letting other drivers pull out or similar, when they don’t have right of way, which is sometimes very confusing. I once had a driver stop to let me turn right, when I didn’t have right of way and there was nobody following the driver who stopped. I also had a driver in front of me to stop to let someone out of a side road when I was then forced to stop, but there was nobody following me at all.
However the same drivers often seem unaware of pedestrians or cyclists, and give them little quarter even when the pedestrian or cyclist has right of way.

Must be ex-bus drivers. Why do they always do the opposite of the rules of the road when theres another bus involved?
I was behind a bus the other day which stopped on a roundabout, to let another bus onto the roundabout(!)

 

[AM9]

Must be ex-bus drivers. Why do they always do the opposite of the rules of the road when theres another bus involved?
I was behind a bus the other day which stopped on a roundabout, to let another bus onto the roundabout(!)

Maybe it was a known spot where buses have difficulties getting on the roundabout because other road traffic won't give way at all.

 

[The exile]

Were there only very few or no ATMs in Germany in the late 1980s then?

By the time I was on my year in Germany as an exchange student in the mid 1990s they did have ATMs there but when I opened an account with the Sparkasse bank I had to wait about ten weeks for my bank card to arrive (despite being told that it would arrive in about two to three weeks). Until that time I had to withdraw cash over the counter and could only do so at the branch where I had set up my account, unlike in the UK where even in pre-ATM days you could withdraw cash at any branch of your bank as I recall.

Another thing that people often used to use when travelling abroad was traveller's cheques. You had to sign them when you collected them and countersign them when you cashed them. I think you could get them in Pounds Sterling, US Dollars or Deutschmarks, and probably some other major currencies such as Japanese Yens. I don't think I've ever used one this century but I used them a lot in the 1990s. These days people mostly just pay by card or contactless payment, or if they want cash, they just use their credit or debit card (or travel money card) to withdraw money at an ATM.

I think you can still get traveller's cheques, and they are supposed to be valid indefinitely. I suppose it might become increasingly difficult to find somewhere that will cash them with a lot of physical bureaus de change and bank branches having closed, though. I'm also not sure if you can still cash traveller's cheques that were issued in a now defunct currency such as Deutschmarks, although hopefully they'll still honour them and cash them for the equivalent amount in Euros (or whatever the local currency is where you are).

Judging by your user name, your year abroad was probably 7 years after mine, which is a long time in the world of technology and its acceptance. Lots of things were also accelerated by the need to leapfrog the ex-DDR into the modern age - sometimes then dragging the “west” behind it.
I’m sure ATMs had started to put in an appearance in Frankfurt and other big cities, but not out in the back of beyond where I was.

 

[Merle Haggard]

For 16 year olds:

• Buying fags for 2 years
• Buying lottery tickets for 2 years
• (soon to be) buying fags at any point for the rest of your life

But they will soon be able to vote...

 

[styles]

On the contrary, I find too many drivers display “weak politeness” by unnecessarily letting other drivers pull out or similar, when they don’t have right of way, which is sometimes very confusing.

There's a distinction to be made here which on the face of it may seem pedantic but is actually quite important.

Nobody has a "right of way" on the roads, not even pedestrians.

The very start of the Highway Code says this:

The rules in The Highway Code do not give you the right of way in any circumstance, but they advise you when you should give way to others.

The rules talk about giving way or giving priority, rather than taking it.

But I agree with your general point about weak politeness. I don't have an issue with letting someone out of a minor road when the major road has a massive queue and you can tell the other driver will be sat there for a lifetime waiting to exit, but I do mentally tut at drivers who are last in a queue and decide to stop to let me out - all it's done is slow both of us down, and of course if a crash happened their insurance company would argue that I should've given priority to their driver.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Aug 2026 ==

But they will soon be able to vote...

They already can in Wales and Scotland, in elections to Welsh or Scottish bodies. Also I believe Northern Ireland, but I haven't worked any elections there.

 

[philthetube]

The fads for...

Nouvelle Cuisine: small portions, prettily presented, and with inflated prices.

Beaujolais Nouveau: Yuppies and Hooray Henry's racing to bring the first bottles back from France of a, not very decent, wine.

Replaced by the fad for serving ridiculously large portions of fish and chips.

Traditional bus "Checking Inspectors" in full uniform including hat, boarding buses to check all tickets and passes with the authority to "book" drivers for ticket irregularities, early running, deficiencies in their uniform etc. as well as answer questions and note comments or complaints from passengers.

Still exist in Blackpool.

 

[Merle Haggard]

/snip

They already can in Wales and Scotland, in elections to Welsh or Scottish bodies. Also I believe Northern Ireland, but I haven't worked any elections there.

My understanding - I may be wrong - that there's an understanding in Scotland that convicted offenders under the age of, I think, 25 will be given much lower penalties because 'their brains haven't matured yet'.

 

[najaB]

My understanding - I may be wrong - that there's an understanding in Scotland that convicted offenders under the age of, I think, 25 will be given much lower penalties because 'their brains haven't matured yet'.

Almost. The guidance is that people under the age of 25 should, all things being equal, be given rehabilitative rather than punitive sentences.

 

[AY1975]

For 16 year olds:

• Buying fags for 2 years
• Buying lottery tickets for 2 years
• (soon to be) buying fags at any point for the rest of your life

And for 16 and 17 year olds in England and Wales, being able to get married with parental consent (or without it in Scotland). I believe that this was possible until about two or three years ago when the minimum age for marriage was raised to 18 in England and Wales, mainly to protect minors from forced marriages. AFAIK you can still get married at 16 without parental consent in Scotland, though. It remains to be seen if Scotland will follow suit and raise its minimum age for marriage to 18 sooner or later.

My understanding - I may be wrong - that there's an understanding in Scotland that convicted offenders under the age of, I think, 25 will be given much lower penalties because 'their brains haven't matured yet'.

There was an interesting discussion in this now locked thread from early 2023 about whether the minimum age for doing anything that's age restricted should be raised or lowered: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...g-certain-things-be-raised-or-lowered.241507/

 

[Silent]

I think young 8 year olds playing new gta games is anachronistic. I think the realism in the newer ones might make it taboo that an 8 year old plays gta 6 whereas in the early 00s it was completely normal for a kid to play GTA SA. Probably from gta 4 it became seen as irresponsible for a kid, younger than a teen, to be allowed to play it. And with biometrics or ID checks now it makes the age limit more enforced.

 

[Sonic1234]

Today I had to queue for a TVM, not done that in years! Not because I don't use TVMs, but because not many other people usually do.