h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The bloke who did the double-take brothers with Harry Enfield.

Gary Coleman

Gary Numan

Was that before or after his recent comeback?

Me

Well, before. Obviously.

Well, he has kinda disappeared again since

There you go then!

Just cone from a fab 80s night in my favourite bar, where they played "Are friends electric", and my mate said "was that not a Sugababes tune?"

Nobody wants to play Twister anymore. But then, nobody plays Twisted Sister either ao I guess it all works out in the long run.

~jwf~

I hate it when that happens Lucky. Like when they play the Bee Gees 'Tragedy' and a young un says "Why didn't they play the original by Steps?"

George Cole

Transformers

Tightrope walkers. I'm sure they're still around but I think it's years since I saw one feature on the news doing a high profile stunt.

Juke boxes in restaurants.

Particularly, the individual remote units that were at every table booth. Brightly lit with a coin slot and rows of letter and number buttons they had the playlist menu on 'pages' which flipped and flopped back and forth in metal frames.
About the size of an old fashioned table radio they were shaped like a smaller version of the big jukebox which was usually centered somewhere in the room. It had the records in it and the big speakers. The table units may or may not have had their own speakers or even the complete playlist available on the central 'juke box' player.


~jwf~

Brian Walden

Lech Walesa

Guinness Enigma

A canned 'draught' lager produced in the UK and heavily and expensively promoted by that great Irish brewing institution during the mid-90s. The trouble was that it was beer so bad that the British consumer positively vomited it back in the company's face.

Now when I do a Google search on "Guinness Enigma" the brand has been so totally expunged from the face of the earth that I only get 18 hits - and several of those relate to "Sir Alec Guinness' 'enigma' ".

But the best bit for me is that the last of those 18 hits is my review, here on h2g2, of just how bad that lager really was. Fame at last

Yes I tried that beer....once

It may be apocryphal but from what I've heard it was simply Harp Extra (also known for being bad) renamed with a silly widget in the can.

Yuss.

Didn't they also try to do a Guinness bitter a few years back as well?

Another huge hit with the beer-drinking public.

RF

Gary Mabbut

Innovations catalogue

Alain Prost

Yahoo Serious

Mayday riots

Tenpin bowling halls in UK style

Monkey jackets

Howard's Way

Bungalow Bill

Judith Haan

Billy Graham 'concerts'

Henry Kelly

Panics about the 'skin eating' disorder

Nigel Mansell

Xray specs

Gollywogs

Graffiti in 'normal' handwriting

Michael Rodd

Richard Orford

Nookie bear

Mrs Merton

Comical Ali

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

The Queen riding a horse

Judith Han is doing Benecol adverts on telly at the moment.

apart from that, yeah.

Kieran Prenderville

Toilet roll holders fashioned from wool in the style of a Little Bo Peep dresses.

Hopscotch grids chalked on pavements

Kids wearing calipers on their legs

Jackets with elbow patches sewn on