What do you miss about the 90s

[whytesnow]

Watching the x files just now got me thinking about the 90s

"Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings can only get better"

What a mug I was

Chain restaurants that made their food from scratch with good ingredients. Like Pizza Express.

Great clothes shops: Jane Norman, Oasis, Next (was actually good), Principles, Miss Selfridge.

Hair mascara yes!

Great comfy clumpy heels!

Loads and loads.

Saturdays mooching around town with friends and buying stuff from the Body Shop

Late night Christmas shopping in a thriving town with my Mum all wrapped up warm.

The excitement of the next NOW CD coming out.

Woolies pick n mix.

Feeling super cool for buying clothes in Miss Selfridge.

ER and Ally McBeal

Blockbusters, even that disappointment when your favourite was already checked out.

Fun TV.

X-Files, Smallville, Lois and Clarke, Farscape, Buffy.

But also, all the great David Suchet Poirots, Morse, Silent Witness when it was good.

The Simpson's when it was good.

Fun kids shows - Round the Twist.

Not feeling like I have to be tied to my mobile phone

Being slim!

Writing letters and waiting for letters to arrive
Arranging to meet friends at a rendezvous point (because no mobile phones)
Making mix tapes
Photo albums and waiting for proper photos to come back from Boots
Grunge
Doc Marten boots
Optimism

My youth and general careless (ness).
Dont remember it being a particularly optimistic time, but it looks sunshine and rainbows compared to today.
Going to blockbusters to pick a film to watch.
Shopping in town for clothes for a night out., when town centres had decent shops.
pre internet and mobiles, meeting your friend, or going on a date and agreeing to meet outside the bus stop, library with no mobiles to explain they were late, aren’t coming etc. A date might send a friend 😩( didn’t much like it at the time, but feel nostalgic about it now. )
New and exciting foods being introduced, cous cous, taramasalata, garlic bread.

Getting drunk and making an arse of myself without the worry of camera phones/social media
Combat trousers (so practical - all the pockets)
Cheesy nightclubs (made friends for life in 1991/92)
Keeping in touch with friends by post when they were away at uni
Having the energy to work three jobs and still have a fantastic social life, while being young enough to not care that I lived in an utter shithole
Having my grandparents alive
The Schuh sale - Dr Martens for £20 or less
Arranging a meeting time in advance and everyone arriving on time (ish)

Long flowery skirts with doc marten boots
Obsession with The Body Shop and being so passionate about their values.
Long evenings on the beach with friends, lying back with my head in a boy's lap, talking for hours - all our thoughts and conversations were "deep" and we thought we were the first generation to think in this way.

The music and how it brought us together into tribes. The feeling that was ok to be alternative. Walking into hippy/alternative fashion and music shops and feeling like you belonged there - getting a nod of recognition from the staff even though they were in their 20s and I was only 15, there was mutual understanding and respect.

The balance of teenage angst about our lives and parents with a real sense of optimism about the future. We thought we were heading towards world peace and btter lives.
The music (again) - it truly was the greatest decade, IMO and cannot be understated.
The most beautiful boy in school and all the missed potential there which I still regret.

Going out for the night with £20 in my purse, drinking way too much, paying to go to a club and more drinks there, getting a taxi home, and still having change the next day.

Any evidence of drunken nights was a few blurry shots via an instant camera at best but the cameras only came on special nights. And never any videos of our drunken antics thank fuck.

The music, the mixture of stuff in the charts alone covered pretty much every genre.

Exclamation and Tribe perfumes.

Bacardi Breezers and Smirnoff Ice. Anything like that is too sweet for me nowadays.

My often eclectic mish-mash of styles put together on the cheap. Attic, jumble sale and customised, mainly. A bit gothy, a bit arty but all me. I used to love picking up retro bits from Sé Sí in Dublin and teaming them with the likes of granny's old rosary beads, DM boots, lurex tights and bindis. (Yes, the latter probably wouldn't fly now in all honesty). Experimenting with looks and not being too "curated".

Getting excited about a night out. Necking cheap wine with pals while getting ready. Just having fun and not worrying about everything being photographed or filmed. And certainly not worrying about creeps too much - we were much more respected.

First mobile phone at the end of the 90s - made getting home so much easier! Before that it was taking pot luck in flagging down a taxi.

Student grants. I was among the first cohort of loan-ees when I was in my second year. But even that was spent on clothes, booze and travelling.

Comedy was better in the 90s. A lot wittier without resorting to the tired old tropes of the past. I loved the likes of Sean's Show and Victor Lewis-Smith's stuff, and saw Jo Brand live before she got her Channel 4 show.

Again, witty magazines like Minx. Tanga Hewlett-Packard, anyone? 😄

The start of things like being taken out for dinner. Seemed such a big deal!

And of course, my figure. I felt a bit fat then as definitely not waify, more a curvy 12 maximum.

But the optimism and anything seeming possible. Funny how life turned out.

My youth and decent, affordable, readily available drugs.

Film 4 and channel 4 on a Friday night when they had some decent comedy, sitcoms.
Paul Merton, Mrs Merton, Steve Coogan, Fast show, shooting stars, Bill Hicks, Dennis Leary etc. I’ve forgotten some, but honestly can’t think of a decent comedian or comedy from recent generations that I think are funny.

Being able to get drunk on a work night and feeling as fresh as a daisy the next day.

Having a really good job but sleeping on a mattress on the floor and spending all my money on chardonnay and takeaway coffees. Always dipping into my overdraft and not caring. Mega cheap holidays in places like Ayia Napa.

That phase of wearing skirts over trousers. Being able to fit into anything that Kookai and Morgan sold. The MAC makeup counter was my second home. A black t-shirt with the logo 'Betty Ford Clinic' on the chest. Vans trainers. Trip Hop.

Watching every episode of Ally McBeal and This Life with my flatmate. Reading and re-reading Bridget Jones's diary like it was the Bible. Thinking Prozac nation was destined to be a classic.

Going to see the 'Sensation' art exhibition in London and thinking Ron Mueck's 'Dead Dad' was the most beautiful thing I'd see in my life.

That general sense that the world was mine for the taking. No responsibilities. A sense of optimism. Happy days.

@orangegato I was looking for those Pringle tubs last week to put in lunch boxes for my kids I decided to look on eBay, they are going for £25!

Not having to work

Not having to pay bills

Having my dinner made for me

Getting birthday cards with coins taped to the inside

Gordon the Gopher

Mitsubishi as in the cars?? If so they’re still available I got a new 71 plate one October 2021.

@Favouritefruits I found one clearing my partners childhood stuff a while ago. Definitely digging it out the loft now! Why don’t they bring them back they’d make a ton wouldn’t they!

I’m pretty sure I had the bottom left one. Never found a shade since that matched it. Ditto Brighton Rock and Dancing Queen. 99p each.

Shopping in shops or from catalogues
Not having a mobile phone

I don't miss the modem's dial-up tone

Getting the bus into town with friends on a Saturday with my wages from my first job and seeing the money go a lot further than it would now. Boots’ Natural Collection shimmer eye powders in the little jars, buying some coloured glass bottle thing from The Pier, the heaving high street in the city centre, literally packed with people shopping. Spending hours in the massive HMV. Oh and my first boyfriend, he was far too good for me but I didn’t appreciate him at the time.

Maybe just because I was a teenager then but nothing seemed as serious as it is now. The music was so good, every genre had something great. You didn’t have to be cool or on all the time, I didn’t belong to any particular group, definitely not one of the popular kids, hung out with the geeks and it was ok not be the coolest or to make mistakes and it just didn’t matter, no fuck up was going to stick with you forever.

Me too ... sometimes it's bordering on painful and I start to feel sad missing what an amazing time it was

Aaah Sunset Beach was bloody awesome! Used to watch the Saturday omnibus before having a nanny nap then getting ready to go out

I'd love a Cadburys Fuse right now.

Yes to good music and people looking normal rather than airbrushed.

TFI Friday

Via David Cameron