Popular Nostalgia

As my name suggests, I was born in the early 80s, the things I write about will be late 80s onwards. Pretty much my earliest coherent memories are of Italia 90, which gives you some clues! I'm English. I'll update this profile bit some more soon!

It was Queen Anne who first saw the potential for a racecourse at Ascot, which in those days was called East Cote. Whilst out riding in 1711, she came upon an area of open heath, not far from Windsor Castle, that looked an ideal place for “horses to gallop at full stretch.” The first race [...]

The Queen’s involvement with racing stretches back to before she came to the throne in 1952, with her first winner, owned jointly with her mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, being Monaveen in a National Hunt race at Fontwell. On the death of her father, King George VI, the Queen inherited the Royal [...]

Absolutely awesome song. “Money for nothing and chicks for free” – what a slogan. I love calling people “yo-yos”. Sting’s vocals on the track are really memorable and stamp the era all over the thing. I remember my Dad getting the album Brothers In Arms and listening to it in the car all the time. [...]

I can push a Push Pop, can you push a Push Pop? I remember these Push Pops being advertised at us very cynically during children’s TV shows so much that my mates and I all rushed out to the shops to buy them. We soon learned that Push Pops tasted pretty horrible and also, probably [...]

Several hundred thousand boys have spent several hundred thousand hours rewinding this scene to check whether you actually see anything. Stupid, really, considering they could just go out and get a girlfriend, but this scandalous moment made Basic Instinct and Sharon Stone’s career (and confirmed my suspicion that Michael Douglas is creepy). Stone plays a [...]

Remember getting spokies in your Frosties? Remember trying to out-do your friends with the number you could fit on your bike? It used to make a racket but we loved spokies. They’re still widely available – especially the Disney ones. Some clever people used to get flashing ones or spokies that made a noise – [...]

This was a staple favourite of my local kiddy disco – the Royal Order of the Association of the Buffalo Club (or Buff Club for short!!!) Once a month, the local townies, scallies and neds would gather round to train up for their eventual admittance to Tall Trees, Cream or the Ministry of Sound. They [...]

In line with their striking pedigree of hit adverts and soundtracks, Levi’s took TV by storm once more with a montage of twisty dancers throwing their limbs about and doing Exorcist-style tricks with their necks to the wonderful sound of Pepe Deluxe “Woman in Blue” otherwise known as “Before you Leave” – shown below the [...]

Levi’s continued their advertising history with a little yellow puppet that aimed to shift more of their jeans. The music and the furry little fiend took the world by storm – topping the charts and bringing out a popular imitation puppet. The response was so immense that Levi’s broke their one-campaign-only rule and brought Flat [...]

This was, very possibly, the album of the 1990s. Nirvana didn’t produce one better and, for me, only Pearl Jam’s 10 has stood the test of time anything like as well as Nevermind by Nirvana. It amazes me a little to think this album dropped onto the scene in the very beginning of last decade, [...]

Before Hugh Laurie had an American accent and limped around a hospital, he was dim-witted Prince in Blackadder. “Queenie” was hilarious with her indiscriminate orders to behead and whims attended to by none other than the acidic Rowan Atkinson. My favourite character by far was Lord Flashheart -played by Rick Mayall. His character could well [...]

I’m not sure precisely when, but at some stage in (I think) the 1970s, some genius came up with the incredible “Spacehopper”. What was, presumably, one small step for a man, became a giant leap for under 10s the world over, as they bounced around aimlessly for hours upon end. Spacehoppers were quite possibly the [...]

I only went to school for a few years in the 1980s and 1990s, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just me who had to sing at least one song while they were at school! Here I’m not talking about school songs – only posh schools have them, sometimes in latin, and never in tune [...]

The Getalong Gang is a fine exemplar of everything that a cartoon should be: informative, fun and featuring a moose AND a caboose. 2 words you don’t often hear in the same sentence these days, more’s the pity, are ‘moose’ and ‘caboose’. A caboose is of course the single train cart club house that the [...]

In or around 1997, an American outfit by the name of ‘Next’ produced an all time classic, if not one-hit-wonder by the name of ‘Too Close’. UK readers might recognise this from the cover that the boy band ‘Blue’ did in (from memory) 2002. Looking back, it is amazing to see just how filthy this [...]