The Retro Cards of Christmas

Many thanks to Paul and Richie for some smashing Christmas cheer as Bev and I (and the cat) opened your cards today.

So far, this Oric one is pride of place as Bev correctly identified the model as being "another pile of dust which you lot worship"



Keep em coming and have a happy yuletide by chucking another unsold E.T. ROM cart on your fires.

 

Ack, my pissed spider handwriting on show

As I said to you Andy, I'm not a card person but made the exception for your good selves as I would anyone on here..

Merry Xmas or Happy Holidays folks...

 

Did you give Bev a Telestrat history lesson?
Glad you enjoyed the card and thank you for ours as well mate

 

You're very welcome, mate.

Yeah, Bev is very good at retro micro model recognition and can now accurately identify "another heap of dust" from 20 yards!!

Her eyes kinda roll, a weary grimace appears and GAME OVER signs appear on her pupils - she lurves em, bud.

Keep em coming!!

 

Bev and Cindy sound similar

Cindy is like Sybil in Fawlty Towers when Basil has an interest, she totally ignores what he's getting excited about, carries on reading and just says a sarcastic "that's nice Basil".

Cindy just has zero interest in all this and has never liked computers especially the huge teletype ones they had in Barclays at first. She does not dislike my gear but its more in the way than it is loved with her

I have got her using a Kindle Firewire tablet which she uses for recipes but she's hardly a surfer and content with that.

But to be fair, she has supported me over the years if I've wanted something so she's a good sort all around.

 

A retro-card from the country of cheese, chocolate and... banks! is on its way to your HQ, Baz, I hope you will appreciate our effort. We have no familiarity with that English tradition of sending wishes for xmas holidays, but we surely did our best. I don't have other members' addresses, at the mo, so I cannot include you in my list. Even though it's still the beginning of December I wish you all a lot of good time with your dears and families, and with your beloved retro gear too!

 

Excellent, Dave.
I am looking forward to a card from the land of cuckoo clocks, cheese and chocolates very much indeed!
Thanking you in advance.

 

From your list of things about Switzerland, I am concluding that you don't like banks! ;-)
And I am with you in this.

 

Banks, I distantly remember those places from when I had money

 

Are there any actually OPEN down your High Street these days, guys?

Honestly, there are towns around Hull now with zero banks left and even a decent-sized city like ours must have seen something like 15-20 branches close in the last decade.

Together with Post Offices (and or course so many, many, many of the big store names), they're vanishing to the point where I no longer think they actually provide us with a reliable, regular handy service and I can't understand why people aren't more up in arms about it: our communities' services are being reduced to unacceptable levels - IMHO.

 

We have them but I'd describe them as loosely open with very short hours..

The big shock was the Sainsburys in South Harrow is shutting for good in the next week, its not massive but not a local either, leaves the people up there either Asda (a shocking dive of a shop, full of thieves and halfwits, not all Asda's, just this one) or Waitrose which is for the elite...

Thankfully further afield we have a big Tesco and a Big Morrisons, there's also a reasonable size Sainsburys in Ruislip but its a fair trek.

 

It's rubbish these days, aint it Paul?

I don't understand why people aren't protesting about it and saying enough is enough.

Clearly many folks prefer armchair banking, mailing and shopping but what about those real people in the real world who like real-world interactions with real people... in real circumstances featuring real goods in front of you that you can examine and peruse - for real.

Is it that our communities and society is no longer... for real?

DISCUSS!

 

Sadly increasingly false, why meet when you can virtual meet, handy for distance or disability but now we skype eachother from the armchair (well I don't). Shops are dropping like flies, I had to have a cancer test via a telephone FFS and you know they will continue to adopt that idea. Can't have our surgery doctors working too much.

How do I buy a hifi or a TV without seeing the thing in the flesh. Even if I end up online for it I still nip to PC World etc on the hope that maybe the price will be ok or just to see it in action..

I'm not a person for restaurant trips these days but I used to like it, are they going to stop that and the dear old pub?

 

I'm afraid it looks that way, my old mate.
Look at the rate in loss of good old boozers:

In 2018, there were 47,600 pubs in the UK, 15,900 fewer than in 1990, a decline of 25%. There was a small decrease in the number of pubs between 1990 and 2000, with 4% of pubs closing. The number of pubs started to decline more steeply from 2001. Between 2001 and 2017, the number of pubs fell by 22%.

and...

994 pubs closed in past 12 months.

Soon, there'll be sod all left.

Shocking, Paul.

 

It is, I'm not a pub person but its always been a wonderful meeting place with something for most people (a pool table in my case). It's just such a British thing that other countries enjoy as well ie Germany etc Just a nice place on an evening like now to chat, eat and just have a bit of fun for a couple of hours (or more).

Absolutely horrific to see the good old pub get obliterated but I'm sure some of our society are enjoying seeing them go..

What next, the traditional British cafe for a nice fry up???

 

We'll soon have nothing left, mate.

Nothing that marks us out from being any different to the rest of the "globalised homogenised" 21st Century pox(y) set-up!

Larkin got it right back in 1972 with this prescient piece:

I thought it would last my time—
The sense that, beyond the town,
There would always be fields and farms,
Where the village louts could climb
Such trees as were not cut down;
I knew there’d be false alarms

In the papers about old streets
And split level shopping, but some
Have always been left so far;
And when the old part retreats
As the bleak high-risers come
We can always escape in the car.

Things are tougher than we are, just
As earth will always respond
However we mess it about;
Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
The tides will be clean beyond.
—But what do I feel now? Doubt?

Or age, simply? The crowd
Is young in the M1 cafe;
Their kids are screaming for more—
More houses, more parking allowed,
More caravan sites, more pay.
On the Business Page, a score

Of spectacled grins approve
Some takeover bid that entails
Five per cent profit (and ten
Per cent more in the estuaries): move
Your works to the unspoilt dales
(Grey area grants)! And when

You try to get near the sea
In summer . . .
It seems, just now,
To be happening so very fast;
Despite all the land left free
For the first time I feel somehow
That it isn’t going to last,

That before I snuff it, the whole
Boiling will be bricked in
Except for the tourist parts—
First slum of Europe: a role
It won’t be hard to win,
With a cast of crooks and tarts.

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There’ll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant.
This won’t be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.

 

Lots of overpriced coffee shops opening around my area. Look lovely but you need to take out a loan for a small latte!
My work base is in a 'nice respectable area' and even that has lost 3 charity shops from the small high street this year. You know something is up when charity shops start to go....

Bring back Tandy's and independent computer shops I say!

 

I agree with @nysavant. Little shops and small retail stores would save many jobs and favour distributed economy. For more than twenty years (more or less since the Internet invaded our lives) we have been witnessing a slow but inexorable concentration of economic power in the hands of multinationals and individual owners with large capital. And this is happening in every economic sector of our western society, including banks.

 

I'm making an effort this year to look at some independent local shops for Christmas presents. It's nice going in for a browse and the owners have been very helpful. I think they really appreciate any support just now.

 

I know what you mean nysavant. Ann and I needed a small chest freezer, so of course looked at Currys and Argos, big mistake. Nothing in Argos to suit, and Currys, although advertising what we needed in our local branch had no stock. The girl assistant was very unhelpful, telling us to go to the branch in Grantham if we wanted it, so we left.

We then went to an independent on the high street and they were so helpful, they had just what we needed without all the hassle from Currys. I'll certainly be going there when we need to replace other white goods again.

 

Love that prose Andy, good read..

Oddly my daughter and I were chatting about the high street mess over Whatsapp this morning, we were chatting about the NEED to have those niche shops and the family ran shops, they make our high street the fun place it should be. I remember going in to PC World with Bob to get him a media player and not one member of staff had the time of day for us, Bob being Bob demanded the manager and suitably bollocked him before leaving. We went down the high street and he got one for 85.00 from a smaller shop but people who wanted to help.

Me and Serena were just saying how ghost town like some of the high streets had become, nothing sadder than a few grouped shops but boarded up for the rest of the high street. And yes, those blooming Latte shops, the cost is horrendous and for soo bloody little!!

I'm old school, I want a butchers, a bakers, a Woolworth, some independent TV / Hifi shops, a shop that sell curtains, a furniture place and yes, a charity shop or three, oh and a good old sweet shop, and chemist..

Basically i want my old high street back, with the merry bustle and the family atmosphere, its good for the head, good for the heart and just works...

The days when you walked in to the butchers, got a couple of chops and you called each other by your first names..

 

You guys speak my kinda language.

I knew we had more in common that just retro micros.

Why aren't communities screaming out to stop this complete reduction going on in the quality of our lives?

As you guys say, it's not just one thing it's everything: high street banks, post offices, independent stores, corner shops, friendly, local retailers and our beloved pubs and clubs.

There needs to be some kind of enquiry to stop this deliberate march towards hoovering up all the trade (and profits) into the pockets of the rich, mega multiple multi-nationals that all you guys can see greedily grabbing every last penny out of our shopping budgets.

Again, you fellas see it and I think it's laughable that some people QUEUE in their cars for 20-30 mins for some stupid trendy coffee drive-in drink - and pay a small fortune for the privilege - when you can sod off home and make a frickin hot drink yourself for a fraction of the price - so why do they do it - has the world gone mad or are the powers of persuasion so powerful that these "new trendy" folks are just brainwashed into consuming Costa, arm-wrestled by Amazon and Feebayed by Ebay? It's like the world and his dog have been hypnotised by hype.

I'm with you blokes all the way - the high street needs saving and we need to spend there, support our independent shopkeepers and keep it local...and yes, open a few more Tandy's, Al!

 

I would say Tandy was a competitor to us as they were opposite our shop but in truth they were RUBBISH

(Although I did buy a big set of speakers from them)

The joy of Tandys to us was that the staff were commission based box shifters who knew (in this branch) next to nothing about anything. A shame as the TRS80 wasn't a bad machine but when you have staff who can't even turn it on let alone understand anything about DOS there was always going to be a problem.

Going in to a Radio Shack in Florida just showed the difference in ways..

 

I remember the old days when we were so poor the only way we could get a heat was to visit all the computer shops in town and get a heat off the power supplies through the holes in our sock feet.

Listen to us. When did we all get so old

 

Power supplies? Power supplies? Hark at ye, Al, you guys had it easy.

We had to warm our poor tired frozen limbs on vacuum tubes, mate:


BAZ entering Rumbelows in 1984...

Plus there were 8 of us living under a Spectrum plus.

(!!)