Does anyone get bittersweet pangs of nostalgia?

[Lencoboy]

Your writing is absolutely beautiful when you talk about things you love.

That's really gratifying to hear BI.

Again, I'm not necessarily saying I would really want to go back to those times as they had their respective downsides and problems too, but the crux of it all is how more innocent, carefree and generally less paranoid people seemed to be, all of which sadly seemed to head in the opposite directions as the decades of the 2000s and 2010s wore on, particularly exacerbated by the increased influence of 24/7 rolling news channels, social media and the Internet in general.

I guess most of us these days are generally wiser when it comes to things like travelling in adverse weather conditions, attending places and events where something untoward is likely to happen, etc, which many of us didn't seem to give as much as a second thought to prior to the decade of the 2000s and beyond.

[WiredIncorrectly]

I do wish I could go back in time.

I was gifted 2 old computer. An old iMac and an old Pentium 2. Working on restoring them back to full working order. I need the Pentium 2 so I can install some Windows 98 tools to do PS1 game development.

When I was a nipper, I always dreamed of one day making a game for he PS1. I'm now eons too late for any chance of profiting from a PS1 game, but it's not about the money. It's purely for self interest.

I've been doing the same with a C64 and Spectrum for some time now. Not sure if anybody played with Basic or Assembler on these older machines, but they're oodles of fun.

I find myself going back in time a lot. I watch mostly old TV shows. I watch old Open University BBC 2 programmes. Managed to collect a huge collection of them. It reminds me when I was a young teenager staying awake until early hours of the morning to watch a programme on Physics, or Computer Science.

I can't gel with current life. For many reasons. Life seemed simpler, and less stressful, in older times. The 60's and 70's were the best times to be alive imho (even though I didn't live through them).

I miss old TV adverts. I miss when Christmas was exciting, and it felt festive. Now it just feels like another day. I miss when communities were tighter. I miss old cars. Gosh I would give my left arm for an RS Turbo, or a Sierra Cosworth (probably couldn't drive them with 1 arm).

I spend my most of my time in a state of nostalgia. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think the feelings got more prominent when my Dad passed. It may also be a coping mechanism. I don't look too deep into it, I just enjoy the feeling.

[Pain]

I do wish I could go back in time....

I can't gel with current life. For many reasons. Life seemed simpler, and less stressful, in older times....

It has been remarked that the past is a foreign country – if so, then I’m a foreigner. I certainly feel I have very little connection with today’s world – the unfamiliar, often perplexing and sometimes terrifying, zeitgeist (a German descriptive word – the spirit of the age).... Polterzeitgeist might be a more accurate description from my perspective – a feeling that everything of intrinsic value is being smashed up, to be replaced with, what... nothing?... Or a weirdly distorted sense of materialism?

[Lencoboy]

It has been remarked that the past is a foreign country – if so, then I’m a foreigner. I certainly feel I have very little connection with today’s world – the unfamiliar, often perplexing and sometimes terrifying, zeitgeist (a German descriptive word – the spirit of the age).... Polterzeitgeist might be a more accurate description from my perspective – a feeling that everything of intrinsic value is being smashed up, to be replaced with, what... nothing?... Or a weirdly distorted sense of materialism?

I think it's also because we're more acutely aware of many things now that we were far less aware of before the 2000s and beyond.

In spite of a lot of the horrible stuff that we seem to be evermore bombarded with whenever we switch on the TV or online news, or read old-school newspapers, etc, I don't necessarily believe society today is inherently any more cruel, selfish or lawless than ever before, even though it often seems that way on the face of it.

While it could be down to sheer luck on my personal behalf, for one issue to name but a few, I seem to notice far less instances of ASB from youngsters whilst out and about these days compared to most previous decades, including on my twice-weekly train journeys, and teenage school kids generally seem tamer now (at least in Tamworth and Burton), again compared to what ISTR during most previous decades.

I know there will obviously always be exceptions but it does seem for the most part that social media and the like has largely helped shift many teenagers away from outside the local Spar, Londis, etc, where gathering outside in large groups seemed to be almost de rigueur once upon a time, but seems to have lessened most markedly since about 2011 or so, which kind of coincides with the explosion of social media and youngsters owning their own personal smartphones since around that time.

[Lencoboy]

My dad went to our local chippy this evening and came back with doner kebab and chips for our tea, which we've just finished eating that was truly yummy, and I was instantly taken aback to Saturday evenings in the mid 80s when I was a kid (circa 1983-85), as not only did we often used to call at the chippy on the way back from visiting my paternal grandparents who lived in Birmingham, and I usually had either a saveloy or roe and chips, and I vividly recall a lot of Saturday evening TV programming around that time, despite never really paying that much attention to the storylines, general subject matter, etc, but being particularly intrigued and amused by the intros and outros of certain popular programmes at that time, such as 'Knight Rider' and 'The A- Team'; both the theme tunes and the on-screen text/imagery. I recall at the end of either 'Knight Rider' or 'The A-Team' (or maybe even both), there was an ident that flashed up for a few seconds bearing text that read something like 'A Universal Presentation; An MCA Company', with an image of a flying saucer-like object also superimposed on it. It was also accompanied by a musical riff consisting of 5 brass instrument-like stabs.

I've never been crazy about those actual TV series per se; moreso the theme tunes and the visual imagery used in the intros and outros that's really making me feel nostalgic, especially triggered by what I ate for tea tonight, and it being a Saturday evening of course.

I might just go and have a quick dekko at snippets from 'KR' and 'TAT' from the 83-85 period on YouTube right now.

[Lencoboy]

I do wish I could go back in time.

I was gifted 2 old computer. An old iMac and an old Pentium 2. Working on restoring them back to full working order. I need the Pentium 2 so I can install some Windows 98 tools to do PS1 game development.

When I was a nipper, I always dreamed of one day making a game for he PS1. I'm now eons too late for any chance of profiting from a PS1 game, but it's not about the money. It's purely for self interest.

I've been doing the same with a C64 and Spectrum for some time now. Not sure if anybody played with Basic or Assembler on these older machines, but they're oodles of fun.

I find myself going back in time a lot. I watch mostly old TV shows. I watch old Open University BBC 2 programmes. Managed to collect a huge collection of them. It reminds me when I was a young teenager staying awake until early hours of the morning to watch a programme on Physics, or Computer Science.

I can't gel with current life. For many reasons. Life seemed simpler, and less stressful, in older times. The 60's and 70's were the best times to be alive imho (even though I didn't live through them).

I miss old TV adverts. I miss when Christmas was exciting, and it felt festive. Now it just feels like another day. I miss when communities were tighter. I miss old cars. Gosh I would give my left arm for an RS Turbo, or a Sierra Cosworth (probably couldn't drive them with 1 arm).

I spend my most of my time in a state of nostalgia. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think the feelings got more prominent when my Dad passed. It may also be a coping mechanism. I don't look too deep into it, I just enjoy the feeling.

I actually remember back in the 90s feeling like I was struggling to gel with a lot of what was going on at the time, especially much of the music and the general popular cultural trends back then, and was kind of missing my more innocent childhood years of the 80s where I felt more protected from the mad bad real world (especially before I was 11), then suddenly by the 90s my childhood was basically over, and then suddenly exposed to the more tedious and raucous sides of adult life that I was previously sheltered from and struggled to comprehend much of (and still do to a certain extent).

But ironically, there's certain aspects of the mid 90s in particular that I'm currently feeling rather nostalgic about, but more specific personal experiences rather than general popular cultural trends of the time.

This evening, for instance, me and my dad went to our favourite local pub which is only just out in the sticks (approximately 1 mile from where we live) and it's rather foggy outside tonight in our neck of the woods which instantly took me back to late 1995 (as I mentioned upthread the other day), coupled with the orangey coloured dashboard illumination/displays in my dad's Peugeot Expert van. And yes I know I've seen foggy weather and the like on several occasions since then, but, or better or worse, such instances have seemingly become fewer and far between.

Also back then most streetlights still lit up in an orangey colour (starting off pinky-red whilst warming up), though (then) newer types that lit up in a goldy colour were becoming all the rage but didn't fully replace a lot of the older orangey coloured ones until several years later, which are now in turn being replaced by white coloured LED luminaries, which I don't actually mind personally.

[Lencoboy]

I've just thought of another thing that I miss from the mid 90s era.

'Cheez-Ums' Pringles. They came in orangey-coloured packaging (by sheer coincidence, especially as I'm a bit obsessed with all things orangey-coloured from that period in general ATM) and tasted absolutely gorgeous.

I recall purchasing tubes of them from the filling stations at motorway services on the way back from our gigs at 2:30 am and scoffing the lot, which I couldn't do nowadays (eat anything in general after about 9 pm) without it repeating on me.

Not only was said flavour of Pringles gone by 1998 (to my vast disappointment) but Pringles as a whole also started tasting crapper from around then onwards.

I wonder if the Pringles brand changed ownership in the late 90s which may have led to the cancellation of my favourite flavours and possibly even changes in basic recipe (of all flavours), or was it just part of the general trend of chopping and changing of recipies, flavours, etc, of food and drink items from around then onwards?

[Lencoboy]

I've just thought of another thing that I miss from the mid 90s era.

'Cheez-Ums' Pringles. They came in orangey-coloured packaging (by sheer coincidence, especially as I'm a bit obsessed with all things orangey-coloured from that period in general ATM) and tasted absolutely gorgeous.

I recall purchasing tubes of them from the filling stations at motorway services on the way back from our gigs at 2:30 am and scoffing the lot, which I couldn't do nowadays (eat anything in general after about 9 pm) without it repeating on me.

Not only was said flavour of Pringles gone by 1998 (to my vast disappointment) but Pringles as a whole also started tasting crapper from around then onwards.

I wonder if the Pringles brand changed ownership in the late 90s which may have led to the cancellation of my favourite flavours and possibly even changes in basic recipe (of all flavours), or was it just part of the general trend of chopping and changing of recipies, flavours, etc, of food and drink items from around then onwards?

Just checked out Wiki and apparently it was in 2012 when Pringles were acquired by Kellogg's, so they had already long changed their recipes under their old longtime owners Procter & Gamble back in the late 90s as ISTR.

I also recall the late 90s era being notorious for food and drink recipes/formulations in general being fiddled around with. 2 cordial drinks in particular spring to mind; that is Kia-Ora orange cordial and Vimto cordial, both of which were 2 of my favourites throughout my childhood, but since about 1996 or so to me both have tasted absolutely rank, and can't stand either of them anymore!

And interestingly enough, a lot of these recipe/formulation changes that suddenly began en masse starting in the late 90s (from around 1996 or so onwards) was actually before all the hysteria about obesity and the like started to abound over the following decades.

Then again, I suppose things like production cost-cutting exercises or even moving factory premises by the manufacturers are also very likely to have played a part.

[Lencoboy]

Just checked out Wiki and apparently it was in 2012 when Pringles were acquired by Kellogg's, so they had already long changed their recipes under their old longtime owners Procter & Gamble back in the late 90s as ISTR.

I also recall the late 90s era being notorious for food and drink recipes/formulations in general being fiddled around with. 2 cordial drinks in particular spring to mind; that is Kia-Ora orange cordial and Vimto cordial, both of which were 2 of my favourites throughout my childhood, but since about 1996 or so to me both have tasted absolutely rank, and can't stand either of them anymore!

And interestingly enough, a lot of these recipe/formulation changes that suddenly began en masse starting in the late 90s (from around 1996 or so onwards) was actually before all the hysteria about obesity and the like started to abound over the following decades.

Then again, I suppose things like production cost-cutting exercises or even moving factory premises by the manufacturers are also very likely to have played a part.

Ditto for Horlicks that's also tasted rank since the end of the 90s IMO.

Absolutely loved the stuff in the 80s and most of the 90s right up until the manufacturers messed around with it. Same also applies to Bird's Custard.

Can't stand either nowadays.

ETA, I don't know whether or not it was just me in that my own sense of taste suddenly started changing radically during the late 90s or did the taste and general quality of many food and drink items genuinely start to deteriorate from around then onwards; e.g, did the manufacturers truly start chopping and changing the recipes en masse from around that time, or was a lot of it simply 'in the mind' with rose-tinted specs possibly involved?

[Lencoboy]

Today I'm feeling really nostalgic about the old pick-n-mix sweet sections in some of our local newsagents/post offices/convenience stores, which seemed to go the way of the dodo during the early 90s.

Licorice was my favourite (and still is whenever I can get it), whether in the form of strips, cuttings, Catherine wheels, Pontefract cakes, etc.

Also loved strawberry lances and of course the ubiquitous Fruit Salads and Black Jacks, which I'm sure are still available today.

I also fondly remember little fishes in various different fruit flavours that had 'Malaco' engraved on them. Lovely tasting things!

Some of such stores sometimes also had a rotary rack of ex-jukebox 7'' vinyl singles with their original centres replaced with black plastic snap-in adaptors, and sold dead cheap. They were also gone by the early 90s, by which time most people had already switched to CDs.