I remember butterscotch Angel Delight, and power cuts, and the way cassette tapes used to spool out and you had to wind them back in with a pencil, and rolls of shiny Izal toilet paper, and waiting by the letterbox for the evening newspaper to arrive, and watching the football results on Ceefax, and Woolworths, and Abbey Crunch biscuits, and briefly making contact with schoolfriends on Friends Reunited, and having to include a fax number in your email signature, and MacFisheries, and flipping back and forth through Choose Your Own Adventure books, and sheets of plastic hole reinforcers, and writing tedious letters to penpals, and always following the Green Cross Code, and Wombles, and Singing Together, and the Junior Jet Club, and packets of Opal Fruits, and pools coupons, and clackers, and trying to keep your tamagotchi alive, and phonecards, and waiting for your photos to come back from the chemists, and the burble when connecting to dial-up, and the thickness of telephone directories, and going on genuinely blind dates, and storing floppy discs in special boxes, and locating books in libraries by flicking through drawers full of index cards, and pushing Parker Royal Blue ink cartridges into fountain pens, and the noise that meant one of your MSN Messenger buddies had come online, and having to lick stamps, and politicians being expected to tell the truth, and date stamps in library books, and using a typewriter to write an important letter, and Girobank, and listening to the music that accompanied the testcard, and shillings, and Pong, and pogs, and cola cubes in sticky paper bags, and watching Robinson Crusoe on television every school holiday, and elm trees, and discovering new music on MySpace, and Buzby, and Findus Crispy Pancakes, and Junior Choice, and photo albums held in place with sticky corners, and cutting stories out of newspapers, and aniseed Spangles, and writing out the track listing on mixtapes, and United bars, and receiving a new cheque book through the post, and It's a Knockout, and school dinner ladies serving up scoops of mashed potato, and Windows 95, and Big Ted, and overhead projectors, and Reliant Robins, and the clunking noise when you pushed a video tape into a video recorder, and flash bulbs on cameras that only worked four times, and lolly sticks with jokes on, and hot cheese oozing out of the side of a sandwich toaster, and Noodle Doodles, and replacing the ribbon on dot matrix printers, and Global Hypercolor t-shirts, and being bored on Sundays, and Rentaghost, and Stylophones, and scuffed shoulderbags with your gym kit festering inside, and pinning down a Spirograph, and Edd the Duck, and music centres in cabinets, and Dymo labels, and Knightmare, and those square plastic tags they used to keep bread fresh (a different colour every day of the week), and cleaning cassettes, and Minesweeper, and Lynx Africa, and discovering the true lyrics to your favourite song in Smash Hits, and Livestrong wristbands, and burning your own CDs, and Tippex, and The Weakest Link, and satchels, and salt and vinegar crisps in blue packets, and Napster, and discussing Big Brother, and the Tufty Club, and Peter and Jane, and Janet and John, and transistor radios with extendable aerials, and Casey Jones, and Humberside, and Brookside, and having to get up off the sofa to change channel, and posters for rabies at Channel ports, and medium wave, and car tax discs, and cheque guarantee cards, and football shirts without adverts on, and ringing the Speaking Clock, and cursive handwriting, and slide rules, and storing your Post Office Savings account book somewhere safe, and electricity showrooms, and cathode ray tubes, and the Ronco Fuzz-Away, and winning a goldfish in a bag, and drapery stores with everything stored inside stacks of wooden drawers, and free milk at breaktime, and the Nimble hot air balloon, and Challenge Anneka, and fingerspaces, and bottles of frothy Cresta, and rubbers with a blue end which could erase ink, and C&A, and recording the chart new entries off the radio, and storing things in empty film canisters, and not being able to buy milk on Sundays, and shell suits, and waiting for the television to warm up, and distressed denim, and Denim, and smoking in pubs, and lemon-flavoured alcopops, and custom ringtones, and party lines, and Eye Of The Tiger, and yesterday, and green anoraks with snorkel hoods, and majority government, and putting your chair up on the desk at the end of the day, and plastic-wrapped boxes of Meltis Berry Fruits, and Record Mirror, and Safeway, and Moon landings, and circling programmes in the double issue Christmas Radio Times, and polyester bedsheets, and Lemmings, and not knowing what your classmates did over the weekend, and 4:3, and using Letraset to give your lettering a professional touch, and Ready Steady Cook, and going on holiday without taking a phone charger, and puffing away on a candy cigarette, and flared trousers, and ringpulls, and saving up for a Christmas hamper from the milkman, and medallions, and the Britannia Music Club, and getting the deposit back on a bottle of Corona, and opening up a webpage without being asked about cookies, and Puffa Puffa Rice, and cars without seatbelts, and CDs in jewel cases, and cinema double features, and the importance of knowing where your nearest payphone was, and student grants, and Disney Time on bank holiday afternoons, and the Dairy Book of Home Management, and Donkey Kong, and plugging in extra RAM, and flicking through the Littlewoods catalogue, and four star petrol, and religiously checking your biorhythms, and sending chain letters to five other people, and Tupperware parties, and changing the battery in your Walkman, and the poll tax, and ITV Digital, and the Puffin Club password, and punched computer cards, and collecting Smurfs from National garages, and never quite being able to see Magic Eye pictures but being too afraid to admit it, and the Stratford Olympics, and sitting in the dark watching your holiday snaps using a slide projector, and sending text messages, and Rupert the Bear annuals, and Pacman, and Eurovisions where the voting took less than an hour, and buying a comic every week with your pocket money, and Mr Benn, and Tony Benn, and The Bionic Woman, and pickled onion Space Raiders, and log tables, and remembering to put your carbon paper the right way round, and Chef's Square Soups, and two-bar electric fires, and black and white, and working nine to five, and Blockbuster video, and free discs on the front cover of magazines, and Skips, and adverts for K-Tel gadgetry, and the Avon Lady calling, and corduroy jackets, and having to buy refills for your Filofax, and iron-on transfers, and 12 inch remixes, and watching Saturday's football results revealed on the Grandstand vidiprinter, and redeeming Green Shield stamps, and reaching down inside the cereal packet to find a random toy in a plastic packet, and nobody's desperately interested if you remember them too.
