It may seem hard to get excited about a wall socket (hence the over the top advertising campaign – see below) but it was a very forward thinking idea. Prior to this a telephone was connected directly to the wall, meaning it couldn’t be moved around the house (indeed you probably only had a single telephone in the house), and if the phone itself broke for any reason (probably unlikely, but possible) you’d need an engineer to come out and wire up a new telephone for you.

So along came the InPhone system, and suddenly not only could we have multiple spots around the house where we could plug in a phone, we could more affordably have a telephone in every room of the house (if we so wished of course) and change our handsets too.

In the years to follow it also meant that getting your computer online became a simple matter of connecting your modem to the wall socket. Imagine if we had still had to use one of those ridiculous acoustic coupler modems like Matthew Broderick used in WarGames.

Another concept that the InPhone system brought along was the idea of actually buying your own telephone. Previously most people rented the telephone itself off British Telecom as well as paying line rental and call charges. British Telecom were responsible for making many of these phones themselves, including the one in the image accompanying this post. Laughably, this was called the “Slimphone” because of its size. Nowadays it would probably be called a brick.

To let everyone know all about this brilliant new concept in telephony, British Telecom had a series of TV adverts which all shared a very infectious piece of music. If you were around in the Eighties and have forgotten it, I’m sure it will come flooding back when you watch the clip below…

The first InterCity 125 trains came into service in 1976, and they were the pride of British Rail’s services right into the 1980’s. With a top speed of 125mph they allowed many journeys to be made in a shorter amount of time and with greater comfort for the passenger.

As a child though, the thing about the InterCity 125 that was most appealing was its design. Looking almost like a rocket with its sleek angled nose, painted bright yellow, it looked incredibly futuristic to my eyes. I remember the excitement must have even got to my parents, as the first train journey I can ever remember taking was a trip down to Devon to the seaside on one of these trains.

With Sir Jimmy Saville, then the public voice of British Rail, singing their virtues alongside the classic “this is the age of the train” slogan, you’d have thought the future of the railway in Great Britain was assured. Here’s an example of one of Sir Jim’s TV adverts, this particular one aimed squarely at business men…

Sadly the nineties saw British Rail privatised (nope, we can’t blame Maggie for that one) and this would seem to have been the start of the decline of the rail service in Great Britain.

However, the InterCity 125 trains are still going, though they have since lost their more exciting name and are now known simple as HSTs or High Speed Trains, which most people sat waiting to get to their final destination will probably find a bit of a joke. They now sport a variety of different liveries, depending on which part of the railway network they belong too, but most still have that bright yellow front, presumably for reasons of visibilty and safety.

Wash & Go was launched during the Eighties and was aimed at those Yuppie types who lived such incredibly busy lives. After a busy day at work, they hit the gym before hitting the town, but of course they need to look their best. However, having to both wash and condition their hair just took too long. What were they to do?

To the rescue came Vidal Sassoon, a man who could only ever have become a hairdresser with a name like that, with a bottle of Wash & Go, a cunning little green bottle containing a mixture of both shampoo and conditioner! Our Yuppie friends lives were saved!

Now the product itself was probably a very good idea, and in a round about kind of way so was the television advert for it. There were countless ads which all followed the same basic pattern, with some young go-getter (possibly even a famous sportsperson) giving us the same basic script:

This wouldn’t have been so bad if the tone of voice used to utter the first two questions didn’t make it sound like taking two bottles into the shower was somehow equivalent to drowning puppies, and if the “not me” part wasn’t spoken as if this person was somehow infinitely superior to us poor viewers.

Another aspect of the advert was that those first two questions were also presented to us with the actor or actress opening two other people’s lockers before they finally got to their own. A great example of the advertising executives completely missing the fact that this made their spokesperson look either untrustworthy (were they looking for shiny things to pilfer?) or as if they had a very bad memory.

I think perhaps my favourite spoof of this advert would have been this one:

For those who don’t know or can’t remember, Duncan Goodhew was a champion British swimmer who just so happened to be bald.

Wash & Go is still available today, saving you that valuable five minutes that conditioning would take, and all credit to the manufacturers as they recently remade the original adverts for the 21st birthday of the shampoo (and conditioner) using footballer Jimmy Bullard. Astoundingly for an officially produced advert it is probably one of the biggest spoofs going!

The Penguin was first produced way back in 1932 by William McDonald, a biscuit company from Glasgow. In 1946 it became part of the McVitie’s line up when McDonald joined forces with several other biscuit companies to form United Biscuits (but not United biscuits, they came a long a little later )

Quite why they were named after the cold dwelling flightless bird I’m not sure, I don’t really see the link myself if there is one. However, the use of the Penguin was definitely a good idea, as most people tend to find penguins amusing, a fact which various TV adverts for the brand that we’ve had over the years took great advantage of.

The brands slogan of P-P-Pick Up A Penguin has also stood the test of time, and indeed is still used on the packaging now, though I can’t recall seeing a TV advert featuring it for quite some time.

Here’s a good example of the kind of advert we were treated to when I was a kid. It features a parcel of penguins (apparently that is the name for a group of them!) waddling around a fun fair and generally having a good time on the dodgems. It’s accompanied by a song sung by a very well-to-do sounding gentleman, which makes great use of the stuttering P to bring us the classic line “When you feel a little p-peckish, p-p-p-pick up a Penguin!”

A good example of this in our family was the Cornetto ice cream. Back in the Eighties the Cornetto was a new idea still, and as such was often twice the price of other ice creams. If my parents weren’t having an ice cream then I would probably be allowed a Lemonade Sparkle or if I was lucky a Walls Feast (yummy), but Cornettos were generally off limits unless they were having one too.

I certainly used to enjoy having a Cornetto when allowed though, and at the time I much preferred them to the standard Mr. Whippy style ice cream, or indeed the scoop of Soft Scoop Vanilla on a cone. I liked the way the ice cream went right to the bottom, so you didn’t have to worry about pushing the ice cream down the cone with your tongue to prevent having to eat half a dry cone on its own.

I recall there being four flavours originally, which in order of my own personal preference were Mint Choc Chip, Strawberry, Chocolate and Hazelnut and Rum ‘n’ Raisin.

Nowadays you tend to only get the first two of those flavours in the form of a bog standard Cornetto (or shop’s own equivalent) but over the years there have been several different fancier varieties made available, the most recent of which is the Cornetto Enigma, which has a streak of sauce running the length of the cone.

Aside from the price though, the other thing that made the Cornetto feel a bit posher than the average ice cream in the Eighties was the television advert. It featured a man and a woman riding in Gondolas in Venice, with the man singing what sounds like it should be a love song from the tune (the operatic song O Sole Mio) whilst the woman eats the Cornetto. That is until the bloke nicks it off her as he glides past. The song is of course now engrained in the UK mass conciousness forever. We all know it:-

Though you’ll be excused for not knowing the “vanilla and chocolate dream bit” (I’m not even sure if that’s quite right to be honest) as it was a bit hard to make out. See if I’m right by watching it below…

The advert in question is for a cat food called Meow Mix, and it simply consists of a cute little cat singing about what she likes to have for her dinner. Whilst the cat has unsurprisingly been dubbed with a human voice, all that human voice actually ever sings is “Meow”, and instead the translation of what the cat is singing about appears at the bottom of the screen karaoke style, complete with little bouncing ball.

By far the best bit though is when the voice over man tells us all about how great Meow Mix is, yet you can still hear the dubbed cat singing along with real feeling in the background.

Not much more too say about it really other than it’s an awesome ad, and one of the first examples that I remember seeing of playing a piece of film backwards and forwards repeatedly to give the effect that an animal is able to talk like a human. Check it out below…

There were four Country Life Butter Men, though there were no real distinguishing features between them and they looked pretty much identical. They were presumably made from butter since they were seen to live within a packet of the dairy product in question.

The adverts featured the four Butter Mens singing a song in West Country accents, which always made them sound like they were being forced by The Wurzels (though whether that is the case or not I really don’t know). The lyrics to this song will forever be etched into my subconscious, and they went like this…

I used to love this advert as a kid, although now I think about it it does seem a little strange that four men made out of butter would be so keen for you to go and buy the butter and eat it, and even stranger when those four men are seen eating toast with Country Life on themselves, as happened in some of the other adverts in which they featured.

During this period over 40 adverts were aired, featuring a typical middle class family consisting of Mum, Dad, two boys and a girl. Amazing really that there were that many, because I really only remember a handful, such as the “Mum’s cooked something different one” (see video below), the “Dad does the cooking one”, and the Christmas one, where the daughter narrates over scenes of the family doing the usual Christmas things, yet poor old Mum only gets credited for making the gravy.

As with most of these advertising campaigns when they come to an end, the reason for the OXO Family being dropped were that they weren’t seen as being representative of the average UK family any more, and I suppose I can see how that is true given it seems that many families no longer sit down to a home cooked meal together any more.

So who were the OXO Family? First there was Mum, played by Lynda Bellingham who at the time was probably best known for her role in All Creatures Great And Small. Try as I might, I can’t remember what the characters actual name was (though I have an inkling it may have been Helen, but I’ve nothing to back that up), and it appears nobody else on the Internet remembers either. If you know, do drop us a comment below! These days Lynda appears as one of the members of the Loose Women team.

Next there was the Dad, named Michael, played by Michael Redfern, who in real life was an actor and cab driver, and now lives in Spain giving after dinner speeches and compering pub quiz nights!

The eldest son was named Nick, and was played by Blair McKihan. Blair has had a fairly successful career in pop music, first as a singer himself, and more recently as a writer of songs for stars including Lily Allen, Will Young and Emma Bunton.

The sibling in the middle was Jason, who was portrayed by Colin McCoy. He trained as a Forensic Chemist, and had a job working for Woolworths visiting chocolate factories for quality control purposes! Not sure whether he’s still doing that now Woolworths is just an online store. He had dreams of becoming a professional magician, but has had to make do with doing stints as a cabaret magician at weddings.

Finally there was youngest child, daughter Alison, who was played by Alison Reynolds. She is now a full time Mum with two young sons.

Actually, maybe the Mum was called Lynda, given that both the father and daughter character’s names were the same as the actor’s names who portrayed them?