little by little, piece by piece, my childhood is dismantled

It's constantly surprising how easily a piece of news can transport you back to your childhood days. I am not given to navel-gazing in general (this blog excepted), and do not, as a rule, look back on my younger days with rose-tinted spectacles. Nostalgia is for people who haven't got enough stuff to pre-occupy themselves with now - I subscribe to the philosophy that if you are constantly looking backwards, how can you hope to look forwards to the future.

However, the sad news that teletext is coming to an end really did pull me back to a time and a place almost 20 years ago: I can remember the new TV appearing in the corner of the living room, the shock of seeing this mighty unit suddenly replacing the 10inch portable that had previously sat there. Of being able to change the channel without having to argue with my sister who was going to get up from their chair, move forward 6 paces, and turn it over.

Most of all, though, I remember getting teletext, and the joy of being able to read news headlines, and sport results whenever I wanted. Looking for the football results was the first thing I did every Saturday afternoon - punching in 302 on the handset, waiting for the page to load as the numbers rotated around, praying that Arsenal had defeated their opponents that day (and being the early nineties and pre-Wenger, the answer was much less predictable).

I also remember much later, the joys of bamboozle on channel 4 (a multiple choice quiz), and the zine, a strange incarnation of what we would now call a bulletin board - but being decidedly old fashioned, you had to write in to teletext, who would decide whether to put your letter up or not.

All of this made me realise that we are extremely fortunate today, to be able to communicate with such ease, and to be able to share ideas, photo's and videos across the world in an instant. It is a far cry from blocky text on a black screen.