Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Can anyone remember when self-service petrol stations came in?

Not really, because around the time they did in the UK we spent a lot of the summers in France, where they hadn't.
It was always amusing watching the French attendants trying to work out quite where to put the "Vingt litres de Super s'il vous plait" in our MkII Zephyr - the filler cap was hidden behind the fold-down rear number plate :rotfl:

Generali

chris_m wrote: »

"Put a tiger in your tank" - complete with the tail that you could hook onto your filler cap

And a giant in your toilet bowl (one for the kids there).

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

"Put a tiger in your tank" - complete with the tail that you could hook onto your filler cap

The bags you got were all paper ones, even the carrier bags! If the bottom got wet, all the shopping would tumble out!


"We're going well,
We're going Shell,
We're going well on Shell, Shell, Shell....."

Pyxis

Oooh! Now my memory's got going, I can also remember taking the empty beer bottles back to the Off Licence to get the penny or whatever refund on the returns.
I hated doing that, because the bag was heavy with these bottles, (I was only little), and invariably my evil mother wouldn't check that all the bottles belonged to that particular brewery, so I'd have to lug some back again! Grrrr!
I wouldn't have minded if I'd been able to keep the pennies, but I wasn't allowed to.

The Off-Licence had a very distinctive smell. As did the drinks cabinet at home, even when it was empty.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Oooh! Now my memory's got going, I can also remember taking the empty beer bottles back to the Off Licence to get the penny or whatever refund on the returns.

I don't remember deposit-paid beer bottles but I do remember going round The Common, picking up all the lemonade bottles I could find and taking them off to the newsagent to collect the deposits.

I also remember checking the phone boxes on the way to/from school to see if anyone had forgotten to pick up their 2p when their call didn't go through.

The most annoying thing I remember was finding that my Saturday pennies suddenly didn't buy as many sweets as they did, even though I'd added the prices up and they ought to have done - blasted VAT came in and, at first, the shops didn't include it in the ticket prices :mad:

Generali

Pyxis wrote: »

Oooh! Now my memory's got going, I can also remember taking the empty beer bottles back to the Off Licence to get the penny or whatever refund on the returns.
I hated doing that, because the bag was heavy with these bottles, (I was only little), and invariably my evil mother wouldn't check that all the bottles belonged to that particular brewery, so I'd have to lug some back again! Grrrr!
I wouldn't have minded if I'd been able to keep the pennies, but I wasn't allowed to.

The Off-Licence had a very distinctive smell. As did the drinks cabinet at home, even when it was empty.

I used to pick up old Corona bottles from under bushes for the 2p (?) deposit you'd get at the shop. I vaguely recall the fizzical adverts.

Pyxis

You should have charged VAT on your pocket money! :rotfl:



Before VAT, though, there was purchase tax. God knows what the rules were. The price tickets always said things like "1/6 net" or "£1/5/- net".

The net always puzzled me as a child. I kept wondering where the net was and why you needed one! I did ask from time to time, but never got a satisfactory answer!

michaels

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, nowadays I've no idea what a lot of adverts are for!

You mean unlike those silk cut ones where unless you were a smoker you didn't have a clue. there was a Spitting Image parody where the marketing guy who designed the competitors 'satin slits' (snigger snigger) campaign gets fired as no one realised half the adds were for their product.....

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, nowadays I've no idea what a lot of adverts are for!

Nowadays I have little idea what an advert is, my PVR doesn't (usually) show them - up comes channel logo, down goes jump 2 mins button, if content still looks carp down goes jump 1 min button, oops too far, hit jump 30s back button, job's a good 'un so carry on watching what I wanted in the first place :rotfl:

Once upon a time, the adverts were often better than what came between them - Guinness, PG Tips, Heineken and Hamlet spring to mind in particular.

Pyxis

Yes! Just occasionally my father would send me to the sweet shop for his cigarettes.! 'Cos they knew him! The shop lady would always tell me to put them under my cardigan, which I thought was strange.

Never had any idea it was against the law! It wasn't all that often, though.
Never had any desire to smoke any. It never occurred to me! I did sometimes 'smoke' sweet cigarettes, though! :rotfl: