Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

Trackman · 15 Jun 2026

Mcr Warrior said:
The "Pink Finals" (and regional variants in alternative, mostly pastel colours) usually had fairly detailed match reports up to and including the hour mark. Goalscorer names and goal times, if you were lucky, thereafter. Not so good if it was 0-0 at half time and all the goals were scored in the dying minutes of the second half.

Yes it was 'Pink' Manchester and I think Bolton was 'Buff', There was a green one somewhere.

Shaw S Hunter said:
Have to disagree about this being anachronistic, it's just a divergence of tastes. I only buy instant and it's all I need for a caffeine kick first thing, after that it's tea for the rest of the day.

I agree too, I buy the Nescafé cappuccino instant packets, they are not great, but OK.
I'm actually a staunch tea drinker, but the number of times I have woken up or whatever and find there is no milk or gone off and had to traipse down to Tesco express got me down. There's only me who drinks milk in the house, the others do not have medical or religious reasons for not drinking it. Love it when they eat something containing milk and I tell them about it.

I see coffee mate (powdered milk) is still a thing for people who know what I'm talking about.
Maybe I should try some in my tea!

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The exile · 15 Jun 2026

Trackman said:
I see coffee mate (powdered milk) is still a thing for people who know what I'm talking about.
Maybe I should try some in my tea!

Mix it with a bit of cold water first!

Merle Haggard · 15 Jun 2026

On the subject of MiG welding at school; we didn't do that, but in Physics about 1962 the master bought in some radioactive samples and Geiger counters and we measured the half life.
A Wilmshurst machine (remember how your hair was pulled towards it) could give a careless Physics master a jolt, too.

Bald Rick · 15 Jun 2026

Merle Haggard said:
but in Physics about 1962 the master bought in some radioactive samples and Geiger counters and we measured the half life.

I did that in Physics 25 years later…

gg1 · 16 Jun 2026

adc82140 said:
My Esso fuel card is still magstripe, as is my Nectar card (but that also has a barcode for zapping). However Tesco have come kicking and screaming into the 21st century, the latest Clubcard is contactless.

I still remember the back and forth manual machines for credit cards, which took an impression of the raised characters on the card onto carbon paper. Last saw one of those about 20 years ago, when I paid in a shop during a power cut. They had to get the manager out to show the assistant how to use it.

Last one I saw was at a stall at Ludlow food festival 10-15 years ago. I remember at the time thinking it'd been a good 10 years prior to that since I last used one.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jun 2026 ==

Mcr Warrior said:
The "Pink Finals" (and regional variants in alternative, mostly pastel colours) usually had fairly detailed match reports up to and including the hour mark. Goalscorer names and goal times, if you were lucky, thereafter. Not so good if it was 0-0 at half time and all the goals were scored in the dying minutes of the second half.

Sports Argus in Brum and the Black Country.

I remember it also included all the local leagues too, going down to the lowest levels of the non-league pyramid. Looking back it was an amazing feat to collate the results of literally hundreds of matches in the pre-internet, pre-mobile phone era, calculate all the league tables, typeset the result pages and print the newspapers all within an hour of full time.

Bald Rick · 16 Jun 2026

gg1 said:
Sports Argus in Brum and the Black Country.

Sports Argus in Brum (from the publishers of the Evening Mail)

Sporting Star in the Black Country (from the publishers of the Express and Star, at one point in the 80s and 90s the highest circulaton of any regional daily in the country. Almost everyone in Wolverhampton took it.)

Although you could get the Sporting Star in central Birmingham, and the Argus is a number of places in the Black Country.

gg1 · 16 Jun 2026

Bald Rick said:
Sports Argus in Brum (from the publishers of the Evening Mail)

Sporting Star in the Black Country (from the publishers of the Express and Star, at one point in the 80s and 90s the highest circulaton of any regional daily in the country. Almost everyone in Wolverhampton took it.)

Although you could get the Sporting Star in central Birmingham, and the Argus is a number of places in the Black Country.

I'd forgotten about the Sporting Star, my dad preferred the Argus so we always had that.

I was bought up in Wednesbury which was one of the areas where you could buy both.

81A · 16 Jun 2026

dgl said:
Along similar lines the dot matrix receipt printer, now only really used in kitchens or other hostile places where a thermal printout wouldn't last, if course for normal use thermal machines are much more convenient as there's only the paper roll to change.

TFLs older Cubic POMs still use dot matrix printers.

GordonT · 18 Jun 2026

A friend of mine in his mid-70s was recalling that his particular GPs practice was the last of several practices in the town where the GP that a family was registered with actually attended at the maternity hospital for any births in the family and had done so for that of my friend's son albeit around 50 years ago.
Even having "your own" GP who would almost always be your GP contact must be a fairly rare thing these days let alone the concept of him/her attending family births as a matter of course.

Steddenm · 19 Jun 2026

Stayed at a Premier Inn last night in Southsea and they were having issues with their card payment service on the computer, and it wouldn't connect. Out came an old swipe imprinter which I was asked to sign for the written amount. Hadn't seen one of those in years. Think the last time was on a train buffet counter - possibly Virgin CrossCountry!

ls2270 · 19 Jun 2026

Steddenm said:
Stayed at a Premier Inn last night in Southsea and they were having issues with their card payment service on the computer, and it wouldn't connect. Out came an old swipe imprinter which I was asked to sign for the written amount. Hadn't seen one of those in years. Think the last time was on a train buffet counter - possibly Virgin CrossCountry!

Not only the imprinters but the debit/credit cards with the raised numbers are now becoming ever rarer too, so for many customers even this fallback option would have been no good!

AndrewE · 19 Jun 2026

ls2270 said:
Not only the imprinters but the debit/credit cards with the raised numbers are now becoming ever rarer too, so for many customers even this fallback option would have been no good!

presumably you could fill in the swipe slip by hand instead? Would be very slow though...

Merle Haggard · 19 Jun 2026

Bald Rick said:
I did that in Physics 25 years later…

Sorry for delay.
I had thought that the health risks associated with radiation were completely understood by about ... 1946; but my recent reading suggests that it was a slow and evolutionary process, and was far from fully understood even in 1962 (when I was exposed to it).
Perhaps I worry too much, but reading about the Windscale leak and the way it was reported - 'the radiated cloud has passed safely out to sea' The North Sea, having passed over Cumberland, Westmoreland and Northumberland leaves me with lingering doubts. But, after 64 years I guess I'm ok.

MicroLithium · 19 Jun 2026

Merle Haggard said:
Sorry for delay.
I had thought that the health risks associated with radiation were completely understood by about ... 1946; but my recent reading suggests that it was a slow and evolutionary process, and was far from fully understood even in 1962 (when I was exposed to it).
Perhaps I worry too much, but reading about the Windscale leak and the way it was reported - 'the radiated cloud has passed safely out to sea' The North Sea, having passed over Cumberland, Westmoreland and Northumberland leaves me with lingering doubts. But, after 64 years I guess I'm ok.

One afternoon's exposure to the kind of sealed, low level sources (or even something like natural uranium) you use for that kind of demo had no chance of doing you any harm whatsoever - I believe it's still an experiment you could do in a secondary school today, with suitable risk assessment. If you've ever had a chest X-ray, that would have been a far larger radiation dose, and Windscale was another thing entirely. So don't worry! This chart: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ has a nice visual representation of how different kinds of natural and man-made radiation exposure compare

Merle Haggard · 19 Jun 2026

MicroLithium said:
One afternoon's exposure to the kind of sealed, low level sources (or even something like natural uranium) you use for that kind of demo had no chance of doing you any harm whatsoever - I believe it's still an experiment you could do in a secondary school today, with suitable risk assessment. If you've ever had a chest X-ray, that would have been a far larger radiation dose, and Windscale was another thing entirely. So don't worry! This chart: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ has a nice visual representation of how different kinds of natural and man-made radiation exposure compare

Thanks.
Thanks. I'm not sure it was sealed, but still point taken.
On the other hand, my family, working in the boot& shoe trade, were very keen to make sure that shoes bought for growing me did not constrict my foot and toe growth. So, in the early - mid 1950s they were enthusiastic users of the device that made sure that my toes were free to wiggle in the selected shoes. It meant I stood on an x-ray machine while various shoes were tried. I do remember that the operator had rapidly-thinning hair and a curiously dry complexion , but that might have been a coincidence.
To be clear; I don't worry about exposure to radiation - or those waves that allegedly emanate from power lines for that matter. When you get old, like me, you have plenty of evidence, from what befalls your peers, that life (or what ends it) is just a lottery.

John Webb · 19 Jun 2026

Merle Haggard said:
On the subject of MiG welding at school; we didn't do that, but in Physics about 1962 the master bought in some radioactive samples and Geiger counters and we measured the half life.
A Wilmshurst machine (remember how your hair was pulled towards it) could give a careless Physics master a jolt, too.

I was completing an 'O' level in 'Engineering Workshop Theory and Practice' in 1962 but only did brazing and silver-soldering - electric welding hadn't yet reached the curriculum.

The electrostatic machines were Wimshurst, I recall, two contra-rotating glass discs with metal patches and collecting brushes with Leyden jars attached.

MicroLithium · 19 Jun 2026

Merle Haggard said:
I stood on an x-ray machine while various shoes were tried

Those machines absolutely do feel like an impossible anachronism now, along with the attitude towards reasonable uses of ionising radiation they implied!

Statto · 19 Jun 2026

Mcr Warrior said:
The "Pink Finals" (and regional variants in alternative, mostly pastel colours) usually had fairly detailed match reports up to and including the hour mark. Goalscorer names and goal times, if you were lucky, thereafter. Not so good if it was 0-0 at half time and all the goals were scored in the dying minutes of the second half.

Yep, Merseyside's version of the Pink was the Football Echo, which had detailed results & tables from the local amateur leagues as well, the Pink's results came from the press association, which went into print just before 5pm, & because of this they often never had full time scores printed, so they showed L (like Scunthorpe L-L Swansea) instead, although we knew all the full time results by the time the Pink was in the shops.

3141 · 19 Jun 2026

I don't recall any demos of radioactivity at secondary school, but we did use mercury, and I remember chasing little balls of it around the workbench, and rubbing it over a penny in the hope that it might be passed off as half a crown.

One science master owned a magneto from an old fighter plane. He got us to join hands in a circuit with someone attached to the leads at both ends. A gentle turn on the handle and we all felt a small shock. Then a more forthright turn on the handle and we all jumped.

Those events were more than 70 years ago. They wouldn't survive a risk assessment today.

75A · 19 Jun 2026

Statto said:
Yep, Merseyside's version of the Pink was the Football Echo, which had detailed results & tables from the local amateur leagues as well, the Pink's results came from the press association, which went into print just before 5pm, & because of this they often never had full time scores printed, so they showed L (like Scunthorpe L-L Swansea) instead, although we knew all the full time results by the time the Pink was in the shops.

In Portsmouth it was the Sportsmail which was also Pink.
I'd go the match by train and by the time i got back to Bognor the paper was on sale, Didn't always agree with the match report though!

Merle Haggard · 19 Jun 2026

MicroLithium said:
Those machines absolutely do feel like an impossible anachronism now, along with the attitude towards reasonable uses of ionising radiation they implied!

Another one was luminous watch/clock hands, although - I/ think - that was a different method.

By the way, my reference to Sellafield was as an example of how officialdom played down dangers.

cool110 · 19 Jun 2026

Merle Haggard said:
Another one was luminous watch/clock hands, although - I/ think - that was a different method.

Alpha decay of radium exciting a phosphor. Insignificant exposure to the user from an intact product, but lethal if you ingest it during manufacture/repair.

EveningStar · 20 Jun 2026

Steddenm said:
Stayed at a Premier Inn last night in Southsea and they were having issues with their card payment service on the computer, and it wouldn't connect. Out came an old swipe imprinter which I was asked to sign for the written amount. Hadn't seen one of those in years. Think the last time was on a train buffet counter - possibly Virgin CrossCountry!

Had this a year or so ago. Young shop assistant had to get out the imprinter and looked at it as if it embodied every gremlin known to humanity. Out of compassion, took it from her and did the imprinting myself. Not sure if she felt I was taking over, yet it was clearly the quickest way of handling the technology.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jun 2026 ==

Bald Rick said:
I did that in Physics 25 years later…

Ditto. During A-level physics we got to use radioactive sources. Classmate spilled some liquid protactinium on the bench, and without thinking got out his hankie, wiped up the spill and put hankie back into his trouser pocket. Do not think he ever had children …

gg1 · 20 Jun 2026

cool110 said:
Alpha decay of radium exciting a phosphor. Insignificant exposure to the user from an intact product, but lethal if you ingest it during manufacture/repair.

There was a very good film released a few year ago about the effect on the workers, Radium Girls.

You can still buy analogue watches with illuminated dials but the use radium for that purpose was phased out in the 60s.

weepingwillowb · 20 Jun 2026

Going through Customs when you entered or returned to a country. When did it become Border Control in the UK?

AlterEgo · 20 Jun 2026

weepingwillowb said:
Going through Customs when you entered or returned to a country. When did it become Border Control in the UK?

UK Border Agency was formed in 2008.

DelW · 20 Jun 2026

weepingwillowb said:
Going through Customs when you entered or returned to a country. When did it become Border Control in the UK?

AIUI Customs and Border Control are different entities, albeit often co-located and possibly sharing staff. One is concerned with goods entering the country (and raising revenue therefrom) and the other is concerned with people entering the country.

Customs is the "C" of HMRC, which certainly still exists!

weepingwillowb · 21 Jun 2026

AlterEgo said:
UK Border Agency was formed in 2008.

DelW said:
AIUI Customs and Border Control are different entities, albeit often co-located and possibly sharing staff. One is concerned with goods entering the country (and raising revenue therefrom) and the other is concerned with people entering the country.

Customs is the "C" of HMRC, which certainly still exists!

Thank you, both.

The exile · 21 Jun 2026

weepingwillowb said:
Going through Customs when you entered or returned to a country. When did it become Border Control in the UK?

You still do it (except intra-Schengen or between other countries with special arrangements). That’s the blue, green and red channels at airports, the first two of which rarely have an obvious staff presence in most countries as most of their activity will be intelligence led, and the chances of you witnessing one of those are low.

SargeNpton · 22 Jun 2026

Prompted by today's TV coverage...

The public being able to wander up Downing Street and being able to take photos of the front door. Just a couple of unarmed bobbies guarding it.

Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

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