Let me take you back, way way back. Back to when times were a lot simpler and, as it seems, so were the people.
We all know little Ian was a bit of a weirdo. I could tell you right now about half a dozen stories of instances where I did strange and unusual activities. Being the youngest of four meant that half the time all of the attention was on me and the other half was on the other three (I know the maths doesn’t really check out but that was how it felt three quarters of the time). I must have been under ten, possibly six or seven years old.
Following on from my award-winning post about my first mobile phone, let me present you with a genuine attempt to create nostalgia.
This actually stems from something my brother used to do. He would eat a packet of crisps then empty out the leftovers and flatten the packet in one of the many comic book, Beano, Dandy or other annuals we had lying around. It wasn’t really Christmas without some kind of bumper collection of comic nonsense filling up a suitable space in your stocking. Why did he do this? I don’t know, I could message him now and get an immediate response but no doubt he will be feeling tired somewhere given it’s a Sunday.
I decided to do the same thing because I wanted in on these absurd shenanigans. I remember chowing down on a selection of different crisps and then flattening them straight away. About a week later, little Ian went back to his flattened packets and looked at them. “This isn’t the same as John’s,” he thought to myself, “it doesn’t look as good.” I was doing exactly the same thing and yet for some reason my brother was much better at applying pressure to small plastic bags. Clearly my self esteem was very low even at such a young age; Freud would have a field day.
Looking at them now, yes, why on earth was this something we did? I don’t think my sisters were involved, they were too busy making up dance routines to New Kids on the Block and Mel and Kim songs. The pre-internet days are becoming something akin to the wild west where hobbies, interests and general activities were so different to what is the norm now that I personally don’t really know what is considered to be normal anymore. Is there a normal? Probably not, look what counts as music these days (that’s my grumpy man comment for this post).
If you indulged in something a little left field when you were a kid please help me out by sharing here. I want to point at you and laugh.
10 comments on “Making Nostalgia”
Are Walker’s “Pan Cooked Double Crunch” and “Max” not the same thing? Was it a branding change?
You’d have to ask some authority on the matter, a crispologist maybe.
What free Tazos did you get with them? Did you get any shiny ones?
No, Nanette, no. There were no shinys. They were always bland ones with no pixels of glittery goodness. I do still have my collection of Star Wars Tazos in their entirety. I keep checking every so often to see if they’re worth millions so I can finally retire and they never are which is a constant downer I’m telling you.
The secret to something becoming valuable and collectable is scarcity. The less of them there are, the more collectable they are. So the best thing you can do if you want to increase the selling price of Star Wars Tazos is to throw yours on a fire.
You mean along with all my books? That fire you started several years ago is still burning. People gather in July and dance around it. I’m so glad my inspiration works can help people through this dark time in human history.
I’m helping to make your books valuable too. In theory, they are now very scarce so they should be very valuable. But I was careful to make sure that none survived so there aren’t any left to be valuable. That’s the greatest prize of all in the literary world.
You can’t possibly know about the secret underground vault beneath St Morrow’s guild in the Chesterparts? I kept a brisk box of each for when times were hard.
We didnt, but since you told us, I’ve sneaked down there with a big bottle of meths and burned the lot. Congratulations! Your non-existent books and now worth millions.
I feel proud of what we have done for literature. We made some of it very valuable, and we also made sure that some of it no longer exists. A grand legacy.