(no music) Invention Flopps | Trivia Tuesday | LMBYTS #1370 | 10th June 2025

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. This is Trivia Tuesday. Trivia Tuesday. My name's Jason Newland.

Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes, because this is a Let Me Bore You To Sleep recording, which might bore you, which may result in your eyelids getting heavy, you falling asleep, deeply asleep. I hope you're well. Just to let you know, I have a Facebook group called Jason Newland's Boring Group.

There is a link on my website. I have a YouTube channel at Jason Newland, where all my latest podcast episodes are released. And my podcasts are also available on most, most of the podcast apps, such as Spotify, Apple, you name it, they're everywhere.

Also, all the latest recordings and 1000s of my recordings. And my old stuff also is available on my website, jasonnewland.com. So today is Tuesday, the 10th of June 2025. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do as far as trivias, what kind of subject I could talk about today.

And then I thought, hmm, I'll do something a little bit more silly, maybe a little bit more just not I don't generally go heavy with it anyway, but just a bit gentle. So I'm gonna gonna do I'm going to focus on famous inventions that fell flat. So basically, inventions that were supposed to be really good, and they were released to the public.

And the public said, no, thanks. No, no, you're okay. I'm stepping back.

See you later. Take your invention with you. Thank you very much.

That kind of thing. So I'd say it's been a nice day today. This morning, I went out with my coat on because it was overcast.

It was windy. It'd been raining pretty much all day yesterday. And it wasn't, it wasn't warm.

But it wasn't cold. And it wasn't raining. So I went out this afternoon.

I normally try and take them out a few times a day. When that's afternoon, just with my cardigan on thinking should be warm enough with the cardigan. Hopefully it won't rain.

But if it does rain, I'll just have to come home. I won't wear my coat. Because I wore it earlier, and it didn't rain.

That's the reason it didn't rain. I don't think my coat had anything to do with it. I'm not stupidstitious like that.

Like, otherwise, well, I would wear my coat all the time to stop it raining. But then there'd be a drought there. That wouldn't be good for the world.

So I went out with my jumper, my cardigan, it was too hot, too hot. I was a little bit sweaty. There's a little puddle building up, you know, down there like, oh, this is weird, because I didn't expect it to be warm.

But it was. And windy. So it threw me off a little bit, because I was thinking earlier on, a few hours ago, I was internally having a little bit of a moan.

Call this a summer, do you? This is supposed to be June. This isn't summer. It's cloudy and potentially rainy.

I'm not sure. I have to wear a coat. But I didn't.

I didn't have to wear a coat. I didn't have to wear a jumper or a cardigan. And then I went out later, about six-ish, I don't know, whatever time it was.

Wore my cardigan at this point, because I thought, well, it's not going to be warm now. Not now. If anything, it was warmer than it was earlier.

Everyone's walking around in shorts and t-shirts. Not everyone. Well, I don't know if everyone, I'm not looking at them, just saying there are people around.

I was the only one with a jumper on. And we're not the only one in the world. But just saying, like, I didn't see many people dressed as thoroughly prepared for changing the weather, you know.

Everyone was just like, oh, it's sunny, let's all wear t-shirts. And I was, again, I was like, oh, this is a bit hot. And someone did ask me, a dog walker said, so how come you've got a jumper on? I said, it's not a jumper, it's a cardigan.

See the zip difference? She said, that's not really relevant. Why are you wearing that? I said, because the weather is not synchronised with my body. And she says, well, what do you mean? She didn't say it like that.

She said, uh, which I guess she meant, what does it mean? What do you mean? I said, well, the weather says t-shirt weather. Okay. The weather says wear a t-shirt, but my body says, don't wear a t-shirt, wear some cover up.

So we laughed. So the first one is QCAT barcode scanner. QCAT barcode scanner.

Designed to connect print ads to websites in 2000, but fizzled within a year due to lack of interest. Designed to connect print ads to websites. I don't even understand really what that concept is.

Maybe that was the problem. Okay. Number two, Betamax video format.

I'm offended by that. Because this is wrong. Betamax video format offered better picture quality than the VHS in the 1970s, but lost the format war.

Okay. Yeah, they did lose the format war. But it was in the eighties.

It wasn't in the seventies. It was in the eighties. Get it right, baby.

Get it right. I remember it might've been the late seventies. No, it was the early eighties.

I'm sure it was. We had all three. So the best one, if I remember, Horace is back.

I am planning to try and take a picture of Horace, the pigeon, and post it on my Facebook page. Can you hear him? He's visited me about five times today. The window's open.

So I'm wondering if he wants to come in and say hi. I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I don't know if he would.

I'm not sure. I don't know. I think he would be happy, but probably in a, in the wrong kind of way.

Oh, a new toy. No. So my memory of video recorders or video players, rather, was the early eighties.

Maybe they were around in the late seventies. It was the, I think it was a Sony, I think it was Sony, but it was 2000 series. And you could record on both sides.

And it was like four hours each side, something like that. They were long. And then Betamax took over.

They became the front runner. And then there was a period when Betamax and VHS pretty much went side by side. And the videotapes, as far as I remember, was the same for both.

But again, I might be wrong there. Maybe the Betamax tapes were different. Definitely the 2000 series.

Was it Sony? They were definitely a larger tape. It was a different kind of tape size. I thought that Betamax was the same as VHS.

But thinking about it, I think Betamax might have been a bit chunkier. But we had all three, not at the same time. I think there was a period when we had both VHS and Betamax, because we had videos.

We might have also kept the other one as well, because we had videos of stuff that we, I say we, that my dad had taped off the TV. And then the drawer. Wow, I remember the drawer.

I think he's still got that set of drawers. And in the bottom it was full of videotapes. And every James Bond movie was on there.

None of them were purchased. None of them were like... In them days, I don't want to say late 70s, but early 80s, to buy a videotape was expensive. Like really expensive to actually buy one.

They didn't sell them in the shops. As far as I remember, they weren't available to buy in the shops. It was really renting, or you taped off the telly.

And so he had, my dad had every single James Bond movie all marked off, you know, old, like that little white strip on the front of it or whatever, that he'd write down what the film was. And he never put James Bond because we knew that that was the only thing that he really liked. We did have Enter the Dragon as well, the Bruce Lee film, but that was more for me.

And the weird thing about it is every single Christmas and every single Easter, and also other weekends throughout the year, there would be old James Bond movies on. Especially at Christmas. But there'd also be other stuff on.

Things that we'd not seen before. Things that we perhaps all wanted to watch. But nope, we had to watch the James Bond movie.

So my dad would be there in his recliner, watching. We didn't even watch it, he fell asleep within about 10 minutes. But guaranteed, if you turned it off, you turned it over to another channel, he'd wake up straight away.

It's like, he was asleep, but he wasn't asleep. Try to say like, try to reason with him, like, come on, why are we watching Diamonds Are Forever when you have the videotape in the drawer next to you? You can watch it anytime. I want to watch it now.

Now. Never. I just didn't understand.

Couldn't really get my head around it. But he loves James Bond movies. I did actually buy him a DVD collection of all the James Bond movies.

I don't know, it's long to put it at 20 years ago. All the ones up to that point anyway. And I remember going around, I think I stayed in the bedroom or whatever.

A few years later, I hadn't even unpacked it, still in the plastic. I hadn't touched it. I'm never going to look at it.

Because he's seen it. He's just going to wait till they're on TV, isn't he? That's it. Wait till they're on TV and watch them.

He's not going to watch them on DVD. That's his way. But then sometimes I'm a little bit like that, you know, if I see something that I could just watch.

I could stream it, but it just happens to be on telly. Sometimes I watch it on telly. There's not really any logic to it, really, I guess.

Other than maybe it's like a little surprise. Like, oh, look, that thing's on. I'll watch it.

Oh, yeah. But VHS did take over from Beta Max. I feel we just used to call it Beta.

Beta Max was the correct term, but just Beta. Beta. Beta.

I could always remember the, like the, the logo as well. I'd say what we used to do. I say we, it wasn't me, but there used to be programs on quite late at night.

Or maybe it was on the other side, when it's kind of ironic, really, because my dad would want to watch James Bond. So we would record the program that we wanted to watch. So that would also be on a tape.

So both the programs, the program that we wanted to watch would be now on videotape. And the movie that he was watching was already on videotape. Very strange scenario.

There's a couple of TV shows that are really long. One was Thorn Birds. One was North and South.

One was Shogun. Yeah, Thorn Birds and Shogun was Richard Chamberlain. North and South was Patrick Swayze.

And these were early 80s. And they were quite big epic series that went on for hours and hours and hours. Really, each episode was very long.

It was like, like a full length movie each. Longer, in fact, I think like six, seven hours long. So maybe I'm exaggerating.

Possibly. There was a really strange show. Because I used to like these shows, because it wasn't really, in all honesty, I don't think it was really aimed at me.

I don't mean me personally. Yeah, I think there was a bunch of rights thinking, right, well, little Jason is 10. What can we produce for him? How about a soldier that gets stranded on an island in Japan? And he learns to be a samurai? How about that? Yeah.

Or what about a love affair between two married people? Or what about what about the Civil War? That'll be a 10 year old would love to watch that. That's about the Civil War, the Civil War. Like, no, it probably wasn't aimed at me.

But I did like watching it. I think I think it was because I was with my stepmom. And I kind of liked what she liked.

And I kind of really was more influenced by her. Probably in reality, probably more influenced by her than anyone else in my childhood. During my childhood period.

She had more influence over me. And in a positive way, I kind of wanted to, I spent time with her. I learned how to talk, not how to talk, but how to have conversations because of her.

Because we would talk and she'd tell me stuff. And, you know, I learned, I suppose I learned how to communicate with her. Yeah, I don't know.

I just wanted to be just like being with her, like being with her, just like being with her. As simple as that, nothing weird about that, is it? I just liked, I didn't want to be her. I don't want to be like her.

No, I suppose I did want to be like her. I wanted to be because she was friendly, she was popular. She's people used to like to stop and chat to her.

And I thought, I didn't have anything to say to them. And I just stand around bored. But I would sort of think, well, how do you do that? How do you keep a conversation going? Yeah.

I learned as I got older, but there were times when I'd be talking to someone, even in my 20s. And I just, well, 30s as well. And 40s and 50s probably.

But there's been times, it happens less, but then I have less opportunity for it to happen. But there's been times when I've been talking to someone, it's one on one conversation, and I just sit, run out of words, got nothing else. And I think sometimes, that happens when people ask me questions about myself.

Like I do, I, I'd say probably, you know, obviously, I like talking about myself, because I do it every day. But I don't have that interest in other people. That is required in order for for the conversation to work, because conversation is reciprocal, isn't it? It's not just one sided.

Otherwise, it'd be a monologue, which is kind of what I do, I suppose. And I can talk to people, but I don't generally, I might ask questions, but I'm generally not interested. Because someone say, oh, yes, you don't.

But there's a benefit to that. I don't know what it means. But there is a benefit of not being particularly interested is I'm also not particularly judging them either.

I just take people as they come, just take it just like, okay, that's how you are. And don't get too involved in their life. And it's fine.

I quite like knowing people. Maybe in that capacity where it's just in some way, maybe argue, say, well, it's very flimsy, or it's very, or the correct word would be not very deep, very transparent, or maybe there is a word I can't think of right now. However, I would say that even people I walk and walk around the park with or see in the park, I have some pretty deep conversations sometimes, talk about some very serious subjects.

People tell me about their lives and tell me about what's going on with them, maybe health stuff. So yeah, I'm, I don't delve. But sometimes people just open up.

And I don't judge them either way, if they, they want to just mention how cold it is, or if they want to talk about someone that he lost. You know, either way, it's fine with me. I'm not really sure where I'm going with that.

What's that got to do with famous inventions? Faminess? Was the word shallow what I was looking for? Am I just a shallow person? Possibly. Edsel car. Now some of you might know what this is.

I don't. I know what car is. And but Edsel car.

So it was a heavily marketed car in 1957, but widely panned and considered a flop. No, I do remember that. I remember hearing about it.

It was like a really bad car. Apparently, no one liked it. But they went, they went ahead with it anyway.

But no one liked it. I'm indifferent because I wasn't born. Number four, McDonald's Arch Deluxe.

Launched in the 1990s as a grown up burger. That's a bit rude, isn't it? A grown up burger. It failed to resonate with the consumers.

Of course it is if you tell if you tell them that they're kids, telling all the adults eating burgers like was up till now you're just kids. And if you don't, if you want to be a grown up, you should eat this deluxe arch thing. People don't mind being told off.

I just want to come just to get some fat in my body. I'm not not just see a McDonald's. Okay, that's it.

Double Google Glass consumer version. I just saw an advert when I saw a video on YouTube about that. It's a different thing.

Google Glass consumer version initially hyped as wearable tech, but abandoned due to privacy and usability concerns. Okay, I don't know much about that. And I know that Google have got a whole load of new stuff coming out, including Google Glass TV.

And they got this thing where there's a camera above it. And to the side. And it's almost like a 3d screen and you can communicate with someone.

I guess over a lot online, but it's a big screen and you can see them. And it looks very real. It looks like the hands coming out of TV.

And I just saw and they did this demonstration. The man from Google had this. I don't think he was like a YouTuber come in and sit down.

He said, Well, just look at that screen. I'm going to go into the other room. And we can talk.

And that's what they did. And I was just thinking, maybe it wasn't another screen. Maybe he wasn't in another room.

Maybe there was a hole in the wall behind the TV. And they just turned the screen on he was just sitting there. That's why it looks so realistic.

I thought how funny because he was at one point he was eating an apple. I thought how funny it would be if the apple like fell out of his hand that fell onto the table and gave the whole thing away. Or the person that was there on the other side might think Wow, this is so realistic.

The apple fell on the table. Blimey. So but that wasn't that it was actually a real thing.

But it's like wow. Problem with that is maybe I could do that. I don't like I don't do video calling.

I don't do it. I don't I don't I don't. And what I've noticed is I was on Oh, what's it called? Not crap.

What's it called? The what's crap? I call it WhatsApp. I was on WhatsApp and I've come out of it. I don't like it.

And I started having what what it gives people the opportunity is to make phone calls. Even if they don't have, let's say they got a pay as you go phone and they've got no credit, but they could still make phone calls off of Wi Fi. So if they tap into a friend's Wi Fi, they can make phone calls, which is good.

Unless of course that person's phoning me up for money. So yeah, not not so good. So I had a few people be calling me up.

Some sometimes trying to do like a live stream like a video thing like I don't do video thing. Don't do it. But that's tried to do in the past.

I know. But it's Christmas. Like, I don't care.

I can't. It's like, look, dad, if you did the video, then you realize everyone in the room would realize I was on the toilet. He said, Well, get off the toilet, maybe.

I said no, then you'll see that I'm not wearing. Anyway, doesn't matter. Just just I don't could just do it as a voice.

That's what phones are for. That's when I realized that maybe I wasn't really up to date with technology. But yeah, I'm not into the video thing, like video calling.

But maybe if it was a big screen, and it looked realistic, and maybe it would be more potentially usable. But still, I don't want to have to get dressed just to make a phone call. Not that I'm sitting around naked all day long.

But it's not just that it's like, you know, it's not just getting dressed, but it's getting dressed accordingly. I wouldn't go knock on my dad's front door dressed like this, I would put some clean clothes on and make myself look mildly presentable. But if someone just phones me or out of the blue, then I might have ice cream all over my face or chocolate all down my top.

Soup on my feet, you know, it's, it could be anything. So I don't, you know, not really for me. However, maybe it will be one day.

Sony Betamax, it's on Time's worst list. That's just rude. Betamax was not bad at all.

Why is it on the Times worst list? If it was better quality than VHS, then how can it be a bad videotape? That's the question. Ah, Nintendo Virtual Boy. I always remember, you know, they used to have a fine.

The video shop, if you didn't rewind the video, there'd be a fine. And the amount of times I'd get to the video shop to take the video back when I was a kid, I realized that I hadn't like rewound them. So I'd be walking down the beach towards a video shop, trying to do it by hand.

Now rewind it take ages. It's not like audio tapes, you could just put a pen through and rewind it that way. Sometimes I mean, it didn't always work.

Depends how thick the pen was. Nintendo Virtual Boy, 1995. Intended as a 3D gaming console.

It was a commercial failure. Okay, I know so little about video games. The thing is, I find it hard to get enthusiastic about something I'm just not very good at.

And I was never really very good at video games. Just didn't really. Yeah, it wasn't as awful.

Yeah, maybe I did like video games, I just didn't like paying for them. And what I mean by that is, it's not about the cost of money. It's maybe it just took me a lot longer to get good at it.

So I'd go down the carousel or down the arcade, where there'd be video games. Tron was my favorite. I just like the music.

I did like the music, but obviously not enough to remember what it was. But it was Yeah, I used to like to play it, but it was like 20 pence a time. And I wouldn't get very far and then I'd be it.

And I suppose if I'd have been playing it at home, I could have done it, played it hundreds, thousands of times and got good at it. But I just didn't. Yeah, I didn't really have that.

That urge. And I did have a couple of video games, actually. And actually, I was a bit a little bit defensive, wasn't it? I did.

Actually, I had actually color video games, actually. What did I have? I had something like a Pac Man. But it was Yeah, I'd like a Pac Man game, a handheld one.

I had another one that was like some kind of star trekking. What was he called? What was not Star Wars? What was the game Space Invaders? It was all asteroids. I think it was more like asteroids.

It was a similar game like that. That had it was like a handheld console. But just that game.

And the batteries were in the back. But they're generally going to back to me. They're going if I mean, I could go in front, but they went in the back.

It's not really relevant to the story. I don't know why. Why am I talking about batteries? But I like them games.

I remember when I got them because things that we used to the one thing, not the only thing, but the one thing that was really good about my childhood, from the ages of seven to 14. Things were in between. Yeah, 14 or 15 or whatever.

But things were Yeah, things kind of changed a lot. After sort of 14. Things kind of didn't really weren't the same anymore.

But between seven and 14. Christmases were brilliant. And birthdays were brilliant.

Like I genuinely, genuinely, genuinely, I can't imagine having had better Christmases in any other scenario. I can't even. It's like, it was great.

It was perfect. It was the my dad really is Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, if you call him Santa Claus. He great Christmases me got give credit where it's due sometimes.

And he not just him, him and my stepmom. They put on the best Christmases. And we did get spoiled with presents with so many presents.

It was great. Brilliant. That's the one thing I can never.

I can't I can moan about lots of things, but I can never moan about that. And absolutely amazing, really. And it wasn't just that everything food every like it was just Yeah, it's like a banquet really.

And it was great times. And even us brothers kind of had a truce during the Christmas period. You know, which is quite nice.

Didn't last long. But it was nice while it lasted. It didn't always last the whole day, maybe till lunch, just after lunchtime.

But it was still nice bit of peace, you know, everyone's like pretending to like each other. And, you know, my brother is showing me their presence and then me pretending to be interested. Just wanted to go upstairs and play with my own presence.

And me showing them my presence and then pretending to be interested. You know, it's just it's just, it's just a game, wasn't it really a game of pretend. But I love the presents.

That's my favorite thing. Not given presents receiving. I loved getting presents.

And I'm not even going to pretend that like, so much pleasure, pleasure, so much pleasure by from buying other people's stuff. Not really. Maybe my stepmom.

I because I used to buy presents all year round, like little bits and bobs, little ornaments and things like that. So yeah, I did like getting her stuff. And I would like to see her face when she opened my Christmas present.

But generally, you know, I was very much focused on my own stuff. Oh, yes. chocolates and sweets and books and toys.

Yeah, it was good. I liked it. I kind of miss it because that's the one benefit.

Well, I don't know if it's a benefit because I could buy myself presents, but no one buys me presents anymore. I sometimes I get a little hamper from my dad. And still gives me money at Christmas.

I mean, I'm I'm nearly 70 years old. And he still gives me money at Christmas. It's silly.

It's not silly in a horrible way. Just like I think he is. I never give it back.

So obviously, I'm not complaining. But it's just I'm not just an adult. I'm I'm, you know, 11 or 12 years away from retirement is really or 12 years 13 years.

I don't know. I'm not sure if it's 66 or 67. But it's not long.

12 years is 67 just over 12 years. Wow. So it's weird, but I do give him presents.

He gets presents every year as well. But he gets more presents because he gets Father's Day presents. There's no son's day's presents is there? No children's day's presents.

Yeah. And yeah, birthdays as well was really great. But it was it was brilliant.

And I loved it. But at the same time, it was awkward. Because what we did is we went into whoever's birthday it was.

We all went downstairs, the rest of the family went downstairs. And then got together and then came upstairs back upstairs again to whoever's bedroom was and we come in and start singing happy birthday. I don't know why I'm doing it.

You know the happy birthday song. And I think it's copyrighted. So I don't think I'm allowed to sing it.

That's gonna make a difference, isn't it? Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. And yeah, my dad, after a couple of years, we went to get together and say, Dad, can you stop dressing as Marilyn? It's disturbing us.

So he didn't. But he didn't stop. And we just got this visual of him doing a little dance.

Standing over a drain. You know that hot air blowing his dress up. I don't know why I've got that visual singing happy birthday.

That's two different scenes, isn't it? So it was it was one of those weird things because I felt I felt very self conscious. When I knew that they were going to come in. And I knew that they were going to be singing happy birthday and I was going to be sitting in my bedroom and what we would do would be in a room would be in the bed and we would open the presents in the bed while everyone might sat on the edge of the bed or stood around.

It was lovely really was. It got changed a little bit once I hit my teen years because I didn't always have enough time to prepare myself for visitors. So the bedroom door would be closed.

I think one year I wasn't awake and the door opened and and yeah, I kind of had to. It was just a little bit embarrassing. But it's okay.

Presents. Let's let's move on. I yeah, I used to love just love it.

Just make I think I preferred Christmas to birthdays. Because at Christmas, everybody was open presents at the same time, which I liked because then I didn't have to pretend to like something I didn't like. And I'm like, yeah, I liked everything.

But I didn't have to like put on a big show. Oh, brilliant. A pair of socks.

Thanks, man. A nice pair of socks. Just what I've always wanted.

Yippee. And it didn't have to do cartwheels or anything like that. Or, you know, wait a minute.

I'm not gonna open any more presents. I want to go up and make a big thank you card for my nan for buying me the socks. She didn't buy, she used to make them.

She used to knit, my nan used to knit stuff. This is totally true. She made us polo necks.

And once we put them on, we couldn't get them over our heads. But my nan was coming around for Christmas lunch, my nan and granddad. And so we were told we got to put them on because they were Christmas jumpers, with little Christmas puddings and stuff on top, you know, green and red and stuff.

And so we got to put it on. And I said, it's not gonna fit over my head. And I said, you're just gonna have to wear them during dinner.

We did that. It's very uncomfortable. We could not get them off.

We had to cut them off. We couldn't get them over our head again once they were on. Actually, I didn't, I didn't cut mine off because I had respect for my nan, so I just wore it all year round.

I eventually grew through it. I don't know if that makes sense. But yeah, it was impossible.

And it's really weird. It's a weird way to end Christmas lunch by being having Vaseline being spread out across my neck, to try and sort of get out of this thing. I'm sure I heard someone say, can we shrink him? Like, you can't shrink me, can you? But yeah, it was, it was, they were so tight.

And we were all looking at each other and there was like, various variations of blue in our faces was like, just trying to eat our dinners. And the ironic thing is my dad didn't find it funny because he had one as well. So all four of us had met, well they weren't matched, they were similar kind of jumpers.

But they just weren't. It turned out we just had the wrong ones on. So, I didn't really realize that inside was the names.

So we got on and my dad took his off and said, this is for you, Jason. And see, it makes sense, that one. But then you're going to think, well, if that was true, then all the others would be, you could say, well, the one that my oldest brother was wearing, that's for the other younger brother.

But what about the one he was wearing? Who was that for? See, it wouldn't work, would it? I guess no. I've kind of found a fault in my own lie. Damn.

Subprime mortgages, financial invention that led to global crisis. So I've got no idea what that is. Hydrogen blimps.

Oh yeah, ambitious but unsafe, filled with the same gas as the Hindenburg. Yeah, I thought they would have learned from that. Great idea, technically.

I mean, phenomenal. And I think it's a shame they didn't really look into it a bit more. A way to do it safely, because that must have been such an unusual way to travel.

Quite smooth, I imagine. I mean, when it worked, I mean. When it was successful, blimey.

I'm not purposely saying blimey, by the way. I just have now become self conscious of it. Plastic grocery bags became environmentally notorious.

Tell me about it. Well, I understand, you know, the whole environmental stuff and plastic bags and stuff like that. But you know what? I've never dumped anything in the ocean, apart from the odd poo.

But that was when I was a kid. Wait a minute. That wasn't the ocean, it was a swimming pool.

That's why we weren't allowed back to Butlins. Oh, it's weird, isn't it? Memories come back. I think there's a there's kind of a this is this is terrible.

And I'm just saying this. I was a kid, right? But like, if any kid is gonna do a poo in a swimming pool, just I wish someone told me this when I was a kid. Of course, don't do it.

That's the first thing, because it's grim. But if someone was to do it, the one thing, one bit of advice that would have been useful for me is don't do it from the diving board. You don't just sit on the end of the diving board and do it because people know they know they notice things like that.

You need to be more covert. Nowadays, it'd be on TikTok, wouldn't it? Historic or niche failures. Microsoft Bob.

I don't remember that anyone remember Microsoft Bob? I just got that visual. Sorry. Microsoft Bob was a CGI placement for Windows with a cartoon house interface, mocked and quickly discontinued.

I don't remember that. Microsoft Kin Phones, 2010. Social media phones scrapped two months after launch due to lack of apps.

Okay, well, the the iPhone was out by then, wasn't it? The iPhone didn't have huge amounts of apps, I don't think, at the time. Maybe I'm wrong, but... Number 13, Oakley Thump, 2004. Sunglasses with built-in MP3 player, pricey and impractical.

It sounds like a good idea, though, doesn't it? Nokia N-Gage, a gaming phone flop noted by Reader's Digest. Okay, I don't know why they're mentioning where they found it. Microsoft Zune.

Why does that sound familiar? A media player that couldn't dent iPod's domination. Oh, okay. iPods were pretty amazing, though.

Easy to use. I mean, I honestly, really, I mean, I don't know why iPods, just why it lost its popularity. I know it's all because of the phone.

But you know what? iPods had a much larger, I mean, now, if iPods were still going, they would have a much larger memory on them. They'd probably have multiple terabytes worth of memory, which could possibly store every movie and every single album ever. But then I suppose we've got streaming for that, haven't we? So I suppose streaming, don't need iPods for streaming.

But I've, I just preferred it to the phone, because I like to use the phone separately. So if I'm out, if I want to go out, I'm talking about in the past, when I used to go out, but I'd have my iPod. I wouldn't necessarily have my phone on me.

So I wouldn't need to. The iPod, it wasn't dependent upon the internet, or data from the phone. Everything was stored on the actual iPod.

I had 250 gigabytes on it. It was, I think the best one around at the time. It's a long, long time ago, 2008, 2009, something like that.

I loved it. And yeah, at the time, I didn't have a smartphone. So having a phone wasn't really an option.

As far as using, but even if I still think an iPod is better than using a phone for music. I don't know why, I just, I just think the sound was better. The, mind you, that was with headphones.

So probably maybe exactly the same with an iPhone. Maybe much better on the iPhone now. I don't know.

Perhaps it was just because the iPod was there for that specific reason. For music, you could have videos as well, but for video, basically for music. Because an iPhone is for lots of different things.

So I guess it just, yeah. I do quite like something that's there for a specific reason. You know, like, like a bed, it's there to sleep in.

And I don't know, generally, you know, but like sleep in it. That's what, that's what my bed's for. I say my bed.

I'd like to say our bed, but it's Vinnie's bed. He lets me share. He's very kind like that.

Hoverboards. The Segway style overhyped and electric versions led to safety issues. Hoverboards.

Okay. I mean, Back to the Future kind of made those, I was gonna say popular because it didn't exist, did they? But like, it, I think it caught people's imagination. The idea that it'd be like a skateboard, but in the air.

Ford Pinto fly. The Ford Pinto flying car. Experimental jet powered Pinto.

Short flights ended in crashes. Well, there are now flying cars again. And I've got no idea how that's going to work.

Because knowing, knowing the human race, they'll just end up being traffic jams in the sky. And you, that won't work, will it? Unless it can hover. Yeah.

How does this stop? You could overtake, but what if you can't overtake? There's something else coming. We go higher up. Okay, but how many levels would there be? It might end up being like 100 different levels of traffic in the sky.

Oh, Bell. Oh, apparently in the UK, Uber taxis, automatic self-driving ones are going to be introduced in the UK. Like now, or they've done a, they've done a pilot scheme and they're going to start releasing them.

When I first saw that, because I only use Uber Eats. We don't have, well, I don't think we have Uber taxis here. So I get Uber Eats and I thought, how is it going to deliver upstairs? How's it going to bring my food to me, my groceries to me, my milk or whatever else I've ordered? Because I'm going to have to go outside, which kind of defeats the object of ordering the delivery.

If I have to go and collect it, I know it's not the same as traveling all the way to the shop, but you know, still, but then I realized it was a taxi. So would I get into a car that didn't, didn't have a driver? The way I see it is the only way the automatic self-driving cars can really work is if all vehicles on the road were automatic self-driving.

Because when one stops, they all stop until that situation is sorted out.

You know, so it's almost, I guess it would work much better as a, I don't know, like as a one kind of brain thing. I know what I'm trying to say. I'm just not perhaps saying it in a way that makes sense, even to me.

Bell rocket belt, a 21 second flight pack used for demos, but deemed impractical. Or 21, 21 seconds. I mean, it'd be useful in some situations.

I mean, I'm pretty sure if you found yourself at the bottom of a well, or some ravine, or very, you know, a mountain or not, not a high mountain, but something that you can't get up. 21 seconds of flying upwards might actually be useful. Or if you're being chased by a goat, I'm just thinking, you know, as an example.

Fly, flying tanks, Antonov A-40, WW2, Soviet wind tank. So this was the plan, flying tanks, but unfortunately it didn't work because they were too heavy to fly. It's like really? I think of what's the heaviest vehicle and the tanks one of the things I think of, one of the heaviest vehicles.

I mean, it's gotta be so heavy. And this got here in AMAT, AMAT cursor gyro, dripping water gorge. Outdated medical tool that failed.

I don't even know what it is. So that's not going to really be useful. On off experiments and oddities.

So let's have a look. Eggcuber, S shaped mold, to cube, hard boiled eggs didn't catch on. Right.

So basically to make eggs in a shape. That's kind of it. I wonder it sounds familiar.

Like I might have had one of them or tested one of them. I tell you one of the things it might be in this list. I did not like it.

Fen, Fen Cui, Fondue, Fondue, that's it. Fondue sets, where you'd have be heating up. Almost like being in a back in the science lab at school.

Bunsen, not Bunsen burner, but you'd be heating up oil and then cooking the food yourself. It's like, no, no, I just didn't. I didn't see the point in spending two hours at a table at home.

No, no, I'd rather just have a sandwich. Thanks. But I remember people used to have parties and dinner parties, couples getting together and chatting about life whilst holding these little sticks of meat in this oil.

And I just, oh, what? Why? Why? That was my question. Why? An electric pen from Thomas Edison. Okay.

All right, so but it lost out to the typewriter. An electric pen. So it was kind of like, not quite sure how it works.

So that'd be interesting to see. But a typewriter kind of came along. Motorized surfboard 1948.

$345 device with poor performance. $345 in 1948. I'm guessing was a lumps, that was a big bag of dosh.

And I think he was like half falling off the chair there. He's just woken up. Wearable parachute, wearable parachute suit invented by Franz Reitscheit.

And failed cast catastrophically. Now, he seems to be enjoying having half his body laying off the chair. I don't know why that is.

Maybe he's just getting to stretch his neck, maybe. I think wearable parachute suit. I mean, aren't all parachutes wearable? That's kind of the idea, isn't it? The aim to be able to wear them.

But then a suit. Would that be like a dinner suit? Just you're going to go parachuting, but you've got a job interview. So I'll go to the job interview first.

And I'll just jump out the window and parachute home. I don't know. Is that is that a thing? But it wasn't very popular.

I personally think that parachutes should be available to anyone. They should be like seatbelts in cars. They should be compulsory for everyone to wear a parachute that goes up in a plane, any plane.

But that's just me. And anyone on a boat should have a life dinghy around themselves at all times, a life jacket on. So even on cruises, everybody should be wearing a life jacket at all times.

Again, cruises might become less popular if that was enforced. But for me, safety is everything. I say that's why I wear a condom when I watch porn.

No, I don't. That's a silly thing to say. Flying saucer camera designed to spot UFOs, but never gained traction.

Flying saucer camera. Is this someone else's point this out? It's strange, isn't it that we now have not only the cameras everywhere we go, like, you know, in the streets and in this country, it's the most surveyed surveillance country in pretty much the whole world, I think, especially in London. Maybe Japan, New York, maybe sort of equal maybe, but everybody's walking around with a camera.

And generally good quality cameras on the phones. Not great sound, but pictures usually pretty good if you're outside. Yeah, how often do we see UFOs now? I don't know if they've named them a different name.

Now, it's not UFOs. It's been no, still UFOs. I'm not going to change it.

It's not derogatory words. I'm not going to change it. I'm using that word, or that that synonym or whatever.

UFOs, unidentified flying objects. Just changing it to whatever they change it to. The American government decided we're going to give it a different name now.

No, no. The TV shows, you know, the UFO files, still the UFO files, not changed. Just because Skoda decided to call their cars Scooter.

It's still Skoda. We still say Skoda. Liddle, still Liddle, no matter how often the years trying to tell us Liddle, Liddle.

No, it's Liddle. We call it Liddle. That's how we do things in this country.

Skoda Liddle. Sorry. That's just the way it is.

And what was a few names that we didn't know? Oh, yeah, I remember when dynasty came out. There was a whole thing like, is it dynasty or dynasty? We call it dynasty. I'm sure they call it dynasty in America.

What's the correct way to say it? And I'll be saying, yeah, also, what about Dallas? That's when a whole family turned on me. What about Dallas? So how are we supposed to? That was just ridiculous, isn't it? Where am I going with that? It's ridiculous. I'm not.

No wonder I was in this special class. How are we supposed to pronounce Dallas? Oh, dear, dear. Oh, man, that was silly.

It's very silly. Okay, back to normality. Oh, my goodness.

I'm about to read this out. Baby cage. Okay, this next one.

Baby cage from the 1930s. A mesh cage. I can't even read this out.

A mesh cage to suspend babies outside London flats. Like budgies, like a budgie cage, but for a baby. Oh, my goodness, that's ridiculous.

He's hanging up in his little cage. Wow. This is a real thing.

Apparently, health concerns, health concerns ended it. I bet you his health concerns about whether or not the cage dropped and hit an adult on the head. That's probably what the health concerns were when about the baby being stuck in a cage.

Wow. I do apologize. I didn't know this was gonna make me laugh.

I should have known really, but oh, ridiculous. Baby cage. Glamour bonnet.

A facial vacuum device from 1940. Baby cage. Okay, moving on.

Facial vacuum. A facial vacuum device from 1940s for complexion improvement. Discontinued.

A glamour bonnet, a facial vacuum. That's so basically sucking the skin out. I suppose it stretches this.

I mean, it's the opposite though, isn't it? Isn't it about like booty products are supposed to be not supposed to be isn't it like quite often about tightening the skin? Not stretching the skin? I don't know. I clearly don't know much about that stuff anyway. Shower hood.

This was 1970s Germany. Head covering shower shield. Head covering shower shield.

People just prefer shampoo. I don't understand that. Shower hood.

Head covering. How do you have a shower and cover your head so your head doesn't get wet? I mean, I know you can have a shower cap, can't you? But a shower shield would literally stop the water from wouldn't just wouldn't get onto your body, would it? I don't know. Maybe that's why it discontinued.

Pet flavoured water called thirsty dog. The mid 90s pet flavoured water water odd and unsuccessful. Okay, so is it water that tasted like pets? The humans drunk? Or is it water that was flavoured the dogs drunk? I'm not sure.

Maybe that's where the problem was with the advertising. People thought, why would I want to have water that tastes like a dog or a cat or a budgie or you know. Number 30.

A cigarette umbrella. The whimsical design never attained popularity. A cigarette umbrella.

Right. This is one of those moments I have to look this up. I'm sorry, I'm I am interested now.

Cigarette umbrella. Oh my goodness. I was here to see the picture of it.

Right. So basically, the from what I can see, I have to look at images cigarette umbrella. Do you know those cigarette holders that people used to have in the old days, like a plastic thing and then they stick the cigarette in the end? It's like that, but with a little contraption, like a little arm with an umbrella that covers the cigarette.

So literally like an umbrella. The kind of thing that you perhaps get in a drink or something. And it protected the cigarette from the rain.

So the next lot is tech misfires. So number 31, Nintendo, Nintendo, Famicom, Famicom, initial release, early faulty console that froze games led to recall. Yeah, right.

So that'd be horrible for people to you look forward to something and then everything freezes. You know? Yeah. AT&T picture phone, 1964.

Video phone debited at World's Fair. It was too expensive. 16 $16 per minute.

Okay, so video phones worked in 1964. Yeah, it was $16 a minute then. But it would have gone now, wouldn't it? I mean, I'm sure they could have sold at least a few 1000.

People that had money, you know, millionaires would probably love to have something like that. In fact, some people that were just quite well off, would probably like to have one and just spend a couple of minutes a week talking on the phone, or a couple of minutes a month talking to family that maybe lived the other side of the country or something. I remember, I've got a ring doorbell.

And I remember there was a date with this, this person who lived in a block of flats. And she actually had a screen inside her flat. And downstairs in the main doorway, because a locked security with 30 years of history.

Security locked that ours isn't locked. But I'm just moaning now. There's literally pressed it and you could see who's down there.

They couldn't see you. But you unless you were down there as well. But then who'd answer the door.

But you'd kind of you could see who was on the screen. It was black and white, I think. But it's like, wow, I was 30 years ago.

And it was good quality picture as well. Bill Gates is tablet PC, 2001. So it was too bulky.

And pricey at $2,000. That was before the iPad, iPad era. Tablet PC.

Yeah, again, I may be the only way it works is if they sell millions. Maybe they have to sell millions like really quickly. Selling something at $2,000.

They still maybe sell 100,000 10,000 20,000 but I guess that's that's not enough. I'm sure they find 20 30,000 pound people in America that would have paid $2,000 to have a tablet PC. But to be fair, I think my business acumen possibly Bill Gates has never once phoned me up to ask me for financial advice.

So that's probably a reason for that. Does he have my number though? Sony CD copy protection. DRM scheme that annoyed legitimate buyers.

I don't really know what that means. So move on. Head on 2000s.

Headache relief gel marketed with bizarre ads faded away. I have a mild recollection of that. Phone fingers.

Phone fingers. Thumb attached phone receiver accessory and never took off. A thumb attached phone receiver.

Thumb attached phone receiver accessory. I'm not sure how does that make sense to you? Phone fingers. So I suppose like the phones on your fingers and you tap.

Oh well. Pop up video ads. Early online ads that became universally despised.

Yes. They're still on. What are you talking about? They're still there.

This pop up video ads are still there. They're still online. It's still sitting on Facebook.

Video ads popping up. I think. Crocs fashion flop.

Oi. Now I'm unhappy about that. I'm wearing Crocs right now and they're pink.

Crocs fashion flop. They're still around. Widely derided and listed as a worst.

No. I think you'll find millions of people love Crocs. They're comfortable.

They are. I wear them every day. I don't go out in them.

Generally. Unless I want to scare the neighbours. Quick catastrophe.

So 41. A baby cage. So that's already been.

Oh my goodness. Olestra. This is a thing.

Olestra. 1990s. A fat substitute detergent causing digestive issues.

So yeah. These were these were taken off because they weren't stable. They weren't good.

Clippy office assistant. Oh do you remember Clippy? On Microsoft Office. An annoying animated staple in Microsoft Office.

Is it still not about? They used to annoy me. Couldn't get rid of it. Why just go away? I liked it for the first day.

It was a novelty. But then after that. It's a bit like a relationship isn't it? You know.

After the first day. Crinoline. Crinoline.

Hoop skirts. Fashion hazard from 19th century. No I don't know that.

A hula chair. Exercise. Exercise while sitting.

A chair that didn't sell. Well the reason people sit is because they don't want to exercise. You know.

It is. There's two different things. It's like eating and going to the toilet.

I mean not exclusively separate. But generally done at different times. Unless you're in a hurry.

Miza or Miza flying car. Car car cut with aircraft wings. It didn't it didn't fly basically.

And that's a pretty good reason for a car. A flying car to be miscontinued or discontinued. If it doesn't actually fly.

And Smell-O-Vision. 1960s cinemas. They released odors during films.

Apparently. It's made the audience laugh. It's not a bad thing is it? Snuggie for dogs.

Tempting pet wear that flopped. Oh I love. I'd dress him up all day long if I could.

He's like a little doll. My little doll. My little action man.

Pop rock candy. Rumored urban legends. Killed sales.

Legal but scandalized. So I've no idea what that's about. Hydrogenated oils.

So that that didn't go very well. Body rust proofing. Okay.

Chat GPT just made up the same joke there. Body rust proofing KFC flavored snack. Just kidding.

But many silly ones filled the time list. He's giving me jokes. Wow.

It's making jorks. He's got jorks. I remember the first time I heard that when I was in London.

Jason's got jorks. It's not even a sentence. It's not even a proper sentence.

I'm telling jokes. I'm not. My last sales job.

There was this. Okay. Everyone was younger than me pretty much when I was there.

Even people who were retiring were younger than me. And one of the people I worked with. She was about 22, 23.

I was. What was I at the time? 42. Yeah, 42 probably.

Only 10 years. Well, not a big difference. But you know, to her, it was like I was an old, old man.

And I said something that maybe was mildly humorous. And she said, Oh, Jason did a funny. Well, Jason said a funny like.

Okay, so I'm not allowed to say funny things because I'm over the age of 10. Is that what we're doing now? Because I'm not 22. Or 23.

I can't say anything humorous. Doesn't work like that. I know some people lose their sense of humor for whatever reason.

But it's just like, come on. What am I supposed to? I think what it is, is I think some people there, if they've got parents my age, I should be acting like a parent or I should be acting like a teacher or something. And I'm not.

I'm neither of those things. I act what I am, which is, I don't know what it is. I don't know what I am anymore.

But what I do know is I have completed the list on here. That I came up with. Let's have a look.

You realize this is the third recording I've done today. I don't know why. Well, I know why because I've done three recordings, but did two previous.

I don't know why I've done so many. Just felt like the right thing to do, I suppose. So yeah, that's the end of this recording.

I'm going to edit it, edit and process it when I wake up tomorrow morning. Thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself.

You deserve to feel safe. Lots of love. Bye.