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Today’s post is about one of those things I distinctly remember liking as a child, yet when I try and remember the details everything is a bit hazy. I’ll start by telling you what I remember.
I would have been around ten at the time, still at primary school, and at the end of the day the teacher still used to read the class a story, though being as we were that bit older it was a longer story split over several days or even weeks. At one point a book was chosen to be read that kept the entire class enthralled. That book was called Captain Cobwebb and the Quogs.
Now, I couldn’t tell you exactly who Captain Cobwebb was, because as far as I can remember the heroes of the story were two young boys. I might have completely mis-remembered the plot, but it went something like this. The two boys stumble across an underground realm inhabited by sinister creatures called Quogs. The Quogs were presumably spider like in some way, because I distinctly remember the boys being caught and bundled up in a silky cocoon of some sort. Obviously they escape, and bring about an end to whatever nefarious plan the Quogs had in mind.
A bit slim on details I know, but there is one very specific detail I do remember, which is that at one point the boys needed to supply a pass phrase to get inside a locked door. It was a very silly pass phrase made up of lots of gobbledy gook words, and it went like this:-
School trips were always fun for several reasons. First, it always seemed like a day off school. Secondly, you sometimes got to go to some interesting places. Thirdly, the coach trip often descended into what can only be described as mayhem! Fun mayhem that is!
So there you are bored senseless in double French, puzzling over just what it is that makes some objects masculine and others feminine (it always seemed so arbitrary to me) when you decide you can’t take it any more. What do you do?
Back in the eighties I remember a lot of Hollywood films mentioning a TV channel called MTV, and wondering what it was all about. It got to a point where if teenage characters in a movie was meant to be cool, they would just have to mention MTV and that was it – instant coolness.
Today schools seem to be brimming with technology, with even primary schools having several computers, TVs, video recorders and those fancy-shmanchy electronic white boards. In the eighties we thought ourselves lucky (and we were!) if we had one 
It seems the world in general has finally realised that recycling materials is a Good Idea, and in the UK town councils across the land have even started issuing us with special bins and boxes for the dustbin men to pick up recyclable materials.
Now, I’m by no means claiming that the Yo-yo was solely a toy of the 1980s. Indeed, in it’s current form as a toy it dates back until at least the 1920s, and records date it back to being a hunters weapon in the Phillipines during the 16th century, and there are even examples of Yo-yo like objects being used in ancient Greece, dating back to 500BC!
I was walking through the breakfast cereal aisle of my local supermarket the other night when I noticed something that surprised me. It seems the practice of putting little toys and freebie gifts in packets of breakfast cereals is all but dying out, as I didn’t notice a single prize to be had from any of the boxes on the shop shelves.
