Nostalgia in the Snow (or lack thereof)

In one of my now semi-regular pilgrimages from the studio to the Students Union, all in the cause of sanity and hypotension relieving sugary things I assure you, I picked up a Wispa bar from the shop. Now this was one of the first Wispa bars I've had since they vanished from the shelves some years ago for... whatever reason. Eating this rare chocolaty treat on the way back in the surprisingly clear-but-cold winters day, one thought crossed my mind "My god... New Wispas suck!" And yes, folks, truly new Wispas are not anything to shout about, much like pretty much every other Cadbury's product in existence, that is to say bland, uninteresting, safe and tastes slightly of chemicals. Pleased I was not.

This whole incident set my mind in motion, casting it back to the glory days of the Old Wispa, the Good Wispa, My Wispa... until a terrifying thought entered into the equation. Wait a damn second, Wispas have always been like that! Yes folks, it looks like nostalgia has screwed me over yet again. And isn't that always the case? 9 times out of 10 the random nostalgic moment you experienced probably wasn't that great at the time, you're just using it to overcome how crap the world really is ("future shock syndrome", as John Wagner puts it). Whilst in some fields, it's a case of So Bad It's Good (gods bless you TVTropes), it's still bad, and that gets us nowhere. With Wispa bars, I really don't get what the fuss was about, and currently think the whole deal was pretty silly.

On the subject of silly and nostalgia, I recently uncovered my first attempt at blogging, the Life & Times of JitteryJoe (for those of you who don't know, Jittery Joe is my long-time user name for most things). At the time of writing this, I've read through a few posts there and I can safely say the following: I Am So Sorry, internet going public. By all that's holy, I wrote some shit back then (4 years ago folks, 4 years), including such gems as Fuck copypasted some hundred times, half formed rants about coffee and my magnum opus, Are There Any Belgians Out There? Once again, I can only apologise, I was young then and was a bit of a dick. This is especially evident in a post doubting Nintendo when the Revolution was announced. I offer full retraction of that, even if "Wii" remains a bloody stupid name for the best console on the planet.

Now it's not all bad, as by the time I abandoned the damn thing in early '07 there was some shades of what you're reading beginning to peek through and also a link to the very first, and for it's time incredibly deep, Somewhere Else (which I'll post here some time in the future). But this in itself does not make up for the idiocy and the many spelling mistakes, oh the spelling mistakes... *shudder* The Life & Times was destined to die when I gave up 2 years ago, and die it shall. I'm not gonna subject the internet once again t it's wrath. If you're honestly curious, Google it, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Moving swiftly on, if you've been in Britain you've probably noticed the snow, which according to the BBC is the worst to hit the country on two decades. I remain unconvinced. Today, in my current location of Middlesbrough has been clear yet cold. In fact we haven't really had that much snow since Monday which, whilst very pretty, didn't really amount to a national emergency. I have heard varying versions of how it's going around the nation, as Hull has been similar (according to Sarah, a close friend of mine), as has Cornwall, where my housemate is (and is possibly stuck in) at the moment. Mother London, however, is snowbound, giving us some frankly hilarious videos of commuters sliding down the steps of London Bridge station, and trains across the south have been canceled regularly. I think this must be one of the few times I've ever heard the North getting better weather than the South. What a turn up.
--Dom
--The past is a foreign country, I choose not to dwell in it