Sunday 9 January 2011

the world turns

What's really changed in your lifetime? Some people say mobile phones. Some say the internet. Some say luggage with wheels.

You're all wrong. Three years ago, maybe even two, you could walk around London and the streets would not be knee-deep in red rubber bands dropped by postmen. Deny this if you can. You can't.

3 comments:

Marie said...

I can date the luggage with wheels thing to November 1995, when it comes up in an early Bridget Jones column (form the newspaper, not the novel). First mention of Mark Darcy in that column as well, as it happens.

You are not mistaken about the rubber bands. I collect them and use them for sealing half-used packets of pasta.

Holly said...

Royal Mail used to have just bog-standard brown rubber bands. Then, as you say, a couple of years ago they changed to red. Apparently this was so that they would be easier to see, pick up etc.

The children in my class used to collect them on their way to school. In an adoring tone "Lovely lovely rubber bands" was overheard as one child shoved their fist-full into the rubber bands box*.

(*This was, it seemed, a complex task consistently resulting in an explosion of rubber bands all over the floor.)

Robert Hudson said...

These are excellent comments. That is all.