blonde poker forum

you are in conversation with an 18 year old

you say

"we used to have to connect to a telephone line to access the internet on dial-up, there was a sound for a minute or two while it connected. After a set period of time the line would hang up and you'd have to dial up again"

and he goes "no, really?"

"we used to have to get up off the sofa to change channels on the TV" Pause "There were three channels".

and he goes "no, really?)

what else from your youth would you tell an 18 year old now that they wouldn't believe....

There was no soccer Saturday when i was your age to see the scores instantly from kick off to final whistle.  There was no livescore.com either.  You used to have to use this thing called teletext on your tv and you needed to be loaded to afford a teletext tv as well.  You had to wait for each page (sometimes up to 5 or 6 pages) to rotate in turn for around 30 seconds each before you saw the score you actually wanted.

Wasn't teletext just awesome back then though?  In running betting prices from Stan James in the top corner of the screen are probably worthy of another post from the mid 1990's.

I thought teletext was amazing when I got a tele with fast text - those four coloured buttons that went straight to a page without having to type numbers in.

When you went into the betting shop to place a bet you had to decide whether to pay 10% tax on your stake or decide to have 10% deducted from your entire returns of your bet.  It was impossible to back a long odds on shot shorter than 1/10 as a single because you couldn't win after tax.

On top of that if you wanted to have a bet on an EPL game if it wasn't live on TV (which most games were not back them) you have to place at least a treble with 2 other games in order for the bet to be accepted.  On top of this most coupons would be bet to 113% as well so it literally was impossible to win as a punter.  You would come out of said bookmakers also stinking of smoke at 11am on a Saturday morning so you couldn't lie to anyone about where you had been either.

When loading your computer game when i was a kid you used to have to connect your Spectrum to a separate tape recorder and then insert the game into the tape recorder and listen to the most insane screeching noise for circa 5-10 minutes whilst it loaded before you could actually play it.

I used to go in the bookies on my own from about the age of 15. Think my old dear thought I was a secret smoker

Then have it crash right at the end of loading and have to start again

Computers never used to actually turn off when you pressed shut down, they loaded up a screen that said 'it is now safe to turn off your computer' and you had to press the button on the tower

If you wanted to have a late night punt at the casino after a few lagers at 3am on a Saturday night you would be kindly refused entry to said casino because you hadn't joined 48 hours in advance.  You would be kindly asked to fill out a membership form and told you could then come in on Monday night at 3am at the absolute earliest and they would send you on your way.  If you told the doorman you were a member of Stanley's in Leicester but you were in Northampton that evening he would just laugh at you and tell you that you had to join each individual casino you wanted to enter 48 hours before entry and it made no difference at all if you were already a member at another one of the chain's casinos.  If you were lucky enough to already be a member of the casino you would have an hour to punt before they booted you out at 4am on the dot every night.  That was on the premise of you being suitably dressed in proper shoes, trousers and a collared shirt in the vast majority of casinos even if some of the casinos in that era such as Annabell's in Leicester were truly not worthy of any dress code in the slightest given the absolute cess pit the place was.

If you were doing your cash and couldn't wait to return you would have to wait for the casino to re open at 2pm the next day.  In addition if you fancied a drink whilst you gambled at the tables that would be impossible as drinking any alcohol at the tables was illegal and you would have to leave your pint in the bar area and sprint backwards and forwards from the roulette wheel between spins to have a sip at the bar.

If you won the £500 jackpot in the fruit machines you didn't get paid out by a lovely clean ticket which you easily carried to the cash desk for your wages you had to sit and watch 500 pound coins hammer out of the machine whilst everyone in the place knew you had had it off from the noise this created whilst collecting a bucket from the cash desk to ship them all into before returning to the cash desk to be paid whilst they bagged up the pound coins ready to be put back into the machine.

If you had done all your wages in your wallet your options for re loading were severely limited to the following options for the vast majority of punters each night.  There were no ATM's available inside the casino so if that was your usual option you would be forced to leave the casino and go out into the street to find the nearest cash machine.  If you were lucky enough to have your cheque book (wtf is a cheque book i hear the kids ask) AND your cheque guarantee card on you (as you do on a piss up in town on a Saturday night) then you would usually be allowed to cash 2 or 3 cheques up to the cheque guarantee card limit which was usually £50 or £100 (ie fuck all).  If you were lucky enough to win by 355am when you were cashing out you could 'buy back' the cheques from the cashier so they wouldn't be cashed and your bank manager wouldn't have to know what a fucking late night pissed up degen you were when the casino presented the cheques to your bank for payment.  This routinely resulted in numerous degens of this era requesting new cheque books after very few of the previous 50 cheques in the last book had actually been cashed.  This led to questions from your bank as to why you needed a new cheque book in the first place.

The ability to use your bank card over the counter via chip and pin to instantly get access to a grand wasn't available back then.

Pubs used to call last orders at 10.30.

We had to go down to the cellar to put ten bob in the metre so we could have electricity.

We only used to have 3 TV channels.

We used to used jumpers for goal posts.

We  used to put dubbing on our footy boots.

Yes I'm an old fecker.

One day, you'll realise that most of the stuff you think is really important really isn't.

Pubs closed in the afternoon....unless you were in Scotland, in which case on visiting it was compulsory to go and have a pint  :cheers:

Teletext holidays was the nuts.

Imagine every pub being closed on a Sunday between 2.30pm and 7pm nowadays?

You could make a mixed cassette tape of songs by recording from the radio.

My old man's snooker club used to make a killing when the pubs had to shut Sunday afternoons.


Incred thread :D

And the casinos closed at 2am on a Sunday morning so no punting if you were clubbing on a Sat night.

Winding the video back before you took it back to Blockbuster.

As students it was heaven to get 8 chips per £ on roulette and free sandwiches.

I'm pretty certain most 18-year-olds of both genders would be shocked that most women used to have pubic hair.

Nearly half of the British population used to sit down on a Sunday afternoon to watch bullseye and any major snooker final that might be live on TV that weekend.

When video rental shops first opened you had to pay to join them.

£10 rebuy and a free curry buffet at sheffield owlerton on a wednesday was great

Haha free casino sandwiches, those were the days  :D

You could fit 10 kids in a normal car.

Just found a youtube video of dial up internet.  My 9 year old really isn't believing that noise is a genuine thing.  The 5 year old just isn't understanding what we are talking about at all.

Epic thread.

Mobile phone evolution:

1. The size of your leg and you needed to carry a briefcase sized battery

2. The size of a household brick, LCD display, text messages would need to be under 120 characters and you could store your contacts, provided you did so in 3 characters or fewer (HÔM for home). Type messages using the number keys.

3. The Nokia era: much more normal size. Battery lasted for ages (because there was nothing to drain it). LCD display which had a game called Snake on it (an increasing conga line of pixels eating a single pixel until you crash or fill the screen). You'd type messages using a predictive text function called T9 but it wasn't smart and you still needed to use the number keys (book = cool). If you wanted a ring tone of your favourite song, you could use your touchtone buttons to record it.  

English teams didn't play in the champions league for a few seasons in the last 30 years and during one of those seasons Everton won the league, Man City were relegated and didn't win an away game all season.  Man U finished below Norwich, Wimbledon, Luton, Forest, Watford and Coventry and only won once away from home all season.  Chelsea finished below Man U as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986%E2%80%9387_Football_League#First_Division

Liverpool v Spurs was probably the biggest game of the season as well in this era even though it now usually involves two Europa league sides.

When I was a kid we owned the house but rented the TV.

''I'll ring you back after 9pm when my minutes refresh''

People who had no cash (coins obviously) on them but needed to use a phone box (wtf is a phone box!) used to phone the operator (wtf is the operator!) and reverse the charges to the person's phone bill you were going to call so they paid.

You didn't need a mortgage to fill up your car with fuel.

There were beat bobby's patrolling you neighbourhood.

A copper could give you a clip round the ear without fear of recrimination.

Your next door neighbours would say hello to you.

Dog shit was white.

Radio rentals  :D

Post actually come in the morning.

Only tattoos you saw were green, faded and usually containing a small bird.

Think the thing that would shock them most in gambling sphere is smoke/smoking in pubs, bookies, casino dickheads who hung tabs right over table when looking at their cards.

What percentage of birds aged 18-25 in 1987 had a tattoo do you reckon compared to today?

and there were 2 postal deliveries Mon-Fri.

less than 5%?

Anyone else get the impression that Arbboy's life has been one big gamble sesh?

At its peak, Radio Rentals claimed it had more than 2 million customers, over 500 shops and employed 3600 technicians, 2700 skilled installers plus a large ancillary staff.

like phones nowadays, you upgraded every couple of years  :)

TV's  used to be B and W
Bath once a week, on a Sunday night, shared water, big tin in front of the fire.
Hammer house of horror was scary.

Yup that's exactly what my dad did....

I had one in my first house and didn't buy a proper TV of my own until 1999, god knows how many times I paid for the rented one over the years!

Searching the internet for the keys to press on create-a-tone on your phone.

Once you found them keying them into phone and then you would have your ne paw ringtone.

Beverly Hills cop theme tune was a fave.

Had to wait until after 6pm to make a call from home as it was much cheaper

If you was lucky enough, remember my mum having to go on a 2 year waiting list from the "Post Office" to get a phone in the late 1970s

We used to have to wait in line to use the public telephone.

Our first telephone number was 351. That was it 3 numbers. You had to answer it by saying " Hello Hodnet 351".

Baths....filled the tin bath by the water pump in the yard.

We used to go to the public baths once a month whether we needed to or not.

Snickers used to be Marathon and Wagon Wheels were as big as your face.

We had a "party line" shared with the next door neighbours. If you picked up the phone when they were on theirs, you could hear their call, and you couldn't make a call at the same time.My dad was constantly annoyed at how often they were on the phone.

Oh yeah, when did that change? I'm so used to it coming god knows when now I forgot this is how it was

As pointed out there was two deliveries, seemingly when this stopped they just started delivering whenever they fancy.

In 2004, the second daily delivery was scrapped in an effort to reduce costs and improve efficiency, meaning a later single delivery would be made. (wiki)

That second delivery on your birthday in the hope more money laden card arrived.

...and they used to just switch offf in the afternoon and late at night

I wonder how much time I have spent looking at this

(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gtzMBSWLIJs/hqdefault.jpg)

Woke up a few times to that annoying noise the telly used to make when that picture went off. Continuous beeping.

There were different pay scales for men and women.

I remember when the Irish Government first appointed an Employment Equality Officer in the 1970s. As a Civil Service position, it was advertised with different rates for male and female applicants.

Double deckers  used to have raisins in.

As a young child you could buy a pack of candy cigarettes and pretend to smoke

It used to be 2p on the bus and now it's 3 quid, 3 fcking quid!!

You used to have to pay per minute when you were on the internet, and pay the price of a phone call, AND no-body could call you at the same time either, they would get an engaged tone.

My dad told me something funny recently-they saved 'REALLY hard' for a year and managed to save 25% of the cost of their first house (an end-of-terrace in an OK part of a nice city).

Old work colleague of mine met some American bird online in the early days of the internet. I remember him regularly racking up internet bills of £300-£400 per month communicating with her!!

He eventually left his wife to go and live in the US with her, although he had the cheek to ask his current wife if he could come back if it didn't work out lol 😂 😂 😂

You could take an empty bottle of lemonade back to the shop and get 5p for it.
Bookmakers had no T.V screens.
You had to lock each car door by hand.

The Greyhound Derby took place at The White City.

Flared trousers were the height of fashion.

Gay sex was illegal and punishable with a lengthy prison sentence.

When you went to the cinema there was several short films, a B movie, an intermission and then the main feature.

FYP

We had a female prime minister who had bigger balls than most men.

Suitcases didn't have wheels at the bottom and you had to carry them by the handle.

Every weekend football match used to kick off at 3pm on a Saturday.

There used to be a coal-mining industry in the UK.

Teachers used to be allowed to hit their pupils at school.

Dennis The Menace regularly got hit with a slipper in the Beano.

Aeroplanes used to have seats in the same cabin for smoking and non-smoking passengers.

Everybody used to get free dental care via the NHS.

A man like this would come to your house once a year to sell onions,

The bus stop outside my work charges £1 anywhere in the town, the same bus picks you up at the next stop which is a 2 minute walk and it is £5, different town.

Alpine pop and Davenport beer delivered to your door.

Bread vans would come round every day. If you weren't in, they left your regular order on the ground in the porch, even if your regular order was an unwrapped loaf.

Hey 18 year old, In the mid 1970s this was one of the most talked about TV clips for years

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajsCY8SjJ1Y

this magazine type show broadcast on sunday evenings was the top rating show on British television

A porch in the 70's? You were posh Mknt Trav lol

Kids actually used to quite happily walk 1 or 2 miles to school at an early age so you could actually drive past a school at peak times without weaving in and out of 40 range rovers parking illegally outside the school gates.

virtually every desk in every office had an ashtray on it.
Almost everyone smoked so they got plenty of use.

I used to go into non-smokers homes and light up, totally oblivious.

What sort of school did you go/do the school run to that there's 40 Range Rovers parked there?

I was hinting at there were no cars outside of my school and most schools near me now have 40 range rovers outside them dropping the little feckers off so they don't get run over on their way to school.

I was hinting at the fact the cars are Rangies and not the assorted bangers,MPV's,estates and f wheel drives I see on the school run.

Standard middle England innit?  All on the never never though!  Keeping up with the Jones' whilst sending themselves skint.

Floppy disks.  8 inch, five and a quarter inch & three & a half inch floppy disks, using about 8 disks for one game

Yah. First mainframe in my first job replacing bureau computing. 2 x 64mb disks about the size of a football pitch. 1mb of RAM. VDUS, incred changes in my life time when I stop.to think for a sec

One day you will think 40 is young.