subscribe
/ Sign Out

Teletext and other unbearable hardships endured by 90s kids

THE nineties weren’t all cheap housing and guilt-free FHM purchases. These are the intolerable hardships kids back then suffered: 

The last five minutes of The Weakest Link

Back then if you wanted to catch the good couch bit in the Simpsons intro on BBC2, you were forced to sit through Anne Robinson quizzing a pair of blue-shirted cretins in the head-to-head round. On the worst days it went to sudden death and the punishing ordeal dragged on for an extra 30 seconds. Kids these days are lucky, although The Simpsons is shit now.

Game Boy screens

Game Boy screens were tiny, impossible to make out because they weren’t backlit, and only displayed various shades of green. Victorian child labourers had it tough in coal mines and shit, but they didn’t give themselves neck cramps playing Amazing Tater.

Teletext

Want the transfer news? Sit through pages of pixelated bullshit loading at glacial pace. And poor joy-hungry kids struggled to have fun by playing Bamboozle! on page 152. The disappointed face of quizmaster Bamber still appears in their minds when they fail to perform sexually.

CD scratches

Neither young nor naive enough to believe 80s claims about CDs being indestructible, the next generation inherited second-hand copies of Jagged Little Pill that a cartel of coke-importers had used to cut lines on.  For youngsters who lived through this dark decade, 9/11 and Iraq felt like a pleasant change of pace.

Dial-up internet

The connection speeds were atrocious, you had to listen to the sound of a computer making sweet love to another, and you’d lose your mp3 because Dad needed the landline. Even when you accessed the web there was f**k all on it worth looking at. As an adult, you’d give anything to return to this internet-free golden age.

'Who are you?' and other truthful messages for office leaving cards

OFFICE leaving cards are a cruel sea of lies and mistruths. Here’s what would be written if they weren’t sparing your feelings: 

‘Who are you?’

I didn’t even know who this card was for even when they pointed you out. Pretty sure we’ve never spoken in five years apart from when the photocopier jammed. You weren’t any use then either.

‘I wrote best wishes first’ 

I bought the card, I get to write the easiest, lamest sentiment. Everyone else is going to have to put some effort in because if they write ‘best wishes’ now they’ll look like they’ve just copied me.

‘Quite frankly you won’t be missed’ 

It’s an office. All kinds of legends who used to work here are now completely forgotten, and you weren’t them. Even Derek in accounts wasn’t bothered and he’s so desperate he invited the bloke who runs his chippie to his 40th birthday.

‘I’ve got to do all your work now, you bastard’ 

On top of the work I’ve already got. So I’ll be getting home at 7pm every night and will miss out on my children growing up. I hope your new job’s shit, you selfish life-ruining prick.

‘Perhaps there is hope’

If even a twat like you can con an interviewer and get out of here, then there’s hope for the rest of us to escape this circle of Hell.

‘We only got on as colleagues’ 

We had fun, me working while you dicked about. It was a laugh seeing you every day, but only in an environment where I couldn’t see my real friends. We’re not going to be meeting for drinks. We’d have nothing to say.

‘I am trapped here forever’ 

I can’t get my shit together to write a CV so I’ll be here till the day I die, doing the same crap day-in, day-out. I wanted to be a marine biologist but I got shit A-levels so I’ll spend my life in the arse-end of an industrial estate filing paperwork so the boss can have three foreign holidays a year.

‘Thanks for showing me how to fiddle expenses’

And chuck sickies, and who’s who in office politics, and how to disable internet monitoring and throw colleagues under the bus for your mistakes. I’ll properly miss you.

Next story ›