Never mind the Bagpuss, here’s the Pingwings

Some time in the 1990s when I bought my first Windows computer, it came with a Pingu screensaver and game, which I thought was pretty cool. Everyone knows about Pingu but I sometimes wonder if I am the only person who remembers the Pingwings. Sometimes I think I imagined them, but no, they did exist, and at least one other person remembers them too.

I am old enough to remember...

The other night I was wasting time on Twitter as usual and stumbled upon a hashtag game #iamoldenoughtoremember. I couldn't resist joining in.

Contributions could be categorised as follows:

Nostalgia:
#iamoldenoughtoremember hovering your finger over the pause button when taping the top40 on a C90.
...there were 240 pennies in a pound.
...gramophones, 78s, 45s, LPs and EPs. And cassette recorders.
Spangles- the sweeties.
...the original Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men.

Weird stuff I thought I'd forgotten:
...Izal medicated loo roll. Or should that be tracing paper at school.
...buying shampoo in sachets because nobody washed their hair often enough to warrant the expense of a whole bottle.
...outside toilets.
...putting wallpaper on school books (why?)

Social comment:
#iamoldenoughtoremember when we had communities. Then Thatcher came to power and told us 'Individualism and commercialism' was good.
...thinking we'd won the punk wars. [that one of mine]

Then I remembered: #iamoldenoughtoremember what I did before Twitter.

Don’t throw your love away: frugal is now fashionable

Being a frugal type, I like freebies so I was happy this morning to find the council giving away free recipe books. It's all about their campaign to get us to stop throwing away food.

Sadly, it turned out to be one of those things where the bureaucrats talk to us as if we were children. Or stupid. Well, maybe we are stupid. Apparently, ‘we’ throw away 700,000 unopened packets of sweets and chocolates a day. Now, that really is a waste.

All the same, I found my ‘guide to using up leftovers’ just a little bit Janet and John. (And yes, I know I am showing my age by not saying ‘Peter and Jane’). Actually, I do already know how to get four meals out of a roast chicken. Doesn’t everyone? As I was thinking along these lines, I came across the bit that said ‘A long time ago, we used to know how to turn leftovers into new meals. Ask an older relative for help.’

Damn. I think they mean me.