#nostalgia

#nostalgia

A magazine sent me to the ATP festival at Pontins in Camber Sands to interview the Beastie Boys of noise, Wolf Eyes. The interview fell to pieces when the band, in a state of great psychic refreshment, all wearing Manowar T-shirts, refused to stop watching a Manowar DVD and signalled they would only answer questions if they related to Manowar. The rest of the day was exemplary one of the best ever walking on the beach, visiting record shops.

Remember the pocket archaeology of untangling your headphones every single time you pulled them out? That split second of dread when you'd fish them from your bag only to discover they'd somehow tied themselves into impossible knots? Designer Aleš Boem remembers. But instead of trying to solve that universal frustration, he's immortalized it. His project, Tangled Headphones for print, takes that chaotic mess of wires we all spent years battling and transforms it into something worth looking at.

1. Soda and beer cans that came with pull tabs:

The 61-year-old is in search of something bigger than himself, in both a spiritual and physical sense. Wedged between open bars and long tables of catered food, professional football players young and old mingle with assorted VIPs. We're at the Adobe-sponsored NFL House, a party that on a normal day we would never sniff. But it is not a normal day; it is the day before the Super Bowl. For this weekend, we are not normal people. We are VIPs.

So the brand reinvents itself to pull in a younger segment of the market, often by borrowing ideas from cooler competitors to seem more "on-trend." But instead of younger and cooler, the rebrand comes off as insincere, stilted, or cringey. Worse, the brand's older, core customers, who liked the brand as it was, are irritated by the changes. Instead of spurring new growth, the effort drives off some of the existing customers, leaving the brand worse off than when it started.

I am sitting in my office shed, cut off from the house by a driving rain. The misery and boredom of the English winter is, I have to admit, beginning to get to me. I spent January talking about the days getting longer, and used up all my optimism. For the last 10 minutes I've been scrolling through the website of my American home town newspaper, which is full of pictures of the recent snowfall over a foot, with more predicted in the coming days. Extreme weather has a tendency to make me homesick I hate to miss a hurricane.

"Oh god. Have you guys heard of XY magazine? This was the main gay magazine in the 90s," he wrote.

When you're cooking with meat, it's hard to go wrong with ground beef. The versatility of ground beef allows it to be used in far more dishes than steak, chicken breast, pork chop, or shrimp. Once it's ground up, the texture and the flavor lend themselves to countless applications. It may not be the perfect ingredient, but it's certainly in the running.

The Muppet Show is back and better than ever before. Well, not better, exactly. I guess a more accurate description would be exactly the same as. But after so many decades of failed attempts at keeping up with the times-after Muppets Now and Muppets Tonight and The Muppets Mayhem, not to mention the Office-style mockumentary series known simply as The Muppets-the Disney/ABC brain trust has realized that Jim Henson's frantic felt creations work best the way they always have.

The beverage giant is going all-in on cherry-flavored goodness with the launch of Coca-Cola Cherry Float and the long-awaited nationwide return of Diet Coke Cherry, and they're doing it just in time to celebrate 40 years of cherry innovation. Starting February 2026, retailers across the U.S. and Canada are stocking shelves with these new additions, giving consumers more cherry-forward options than ever before.

Atlanta's Ying Yang Twins helped define the crunk era by turning late-night club energy into a national language all its own. Their catalog relies on deep bass, playful braggadocio, and hooks designed for shouted choruses more than quiet contemplation. Songs such as "Salt Shaker" and "Wait (The Whisper Song)" turned clubs into shared sing-along zones that felt as much ritual as entertainment.

That is where Razer's Pokémon collection comes in. Instead of one Pikachu mousepad, Razer built a full ecosystem that includes the BlackWidow V4 X keyboard, Cobra mouse, Kraken V4 X headset, and Gigantus V2 M mat. The line is officially licensed and leans into Kanto nostalgia, wrapping every peripheral in Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle graphics across bright yellow surfaces with synced Razer Chroma RGB lighting.

There are more than 6,000 Pizza Huts dotting the thoroughfares of the United States, and almost all of them look exactly the same: The interiors are squat, bland, and cramped; the dining options are restricted to takeout and delivery; there is no soundtrack, save for fluorescent lights buzzing overhead; and there is maybe a lonely chair waiting listlessly by the doorway.

Whenever I see a toy robot, I feel like a kid again. Not because of Transformers, but because Ia millennial and self-proclaimed Cartoon Network kidgrew up on Dexter's Lab, and man, did that show burrow its way into my brain. Who knows? Maybe if I hadn't been so awful at doing useful stuff like math and chemistry, Dexter might have compelled me to become a scientist or an engineer.

cardiganed grandmothers eating roadside picnics beside Morris Minors, pale men sunbathing in shoes and socks on stripy deckchairs, Raleigh Choppers and caged budgerigars and faux leather pouffes I feel a wave of what can't properly be called nostalgia, because the last thing I'd want is to return to that age and those places where I was often profoundly unhappy and from which I'd have been desperate to escape if escape had been a possibility.

Mickey Mouse is more than a simple animated character. He represents a particular emotion that most people experience before they have a chance to process what they've seen. From Mickey Mouse's two black dots for his ears, his round-shaped head, his big doe-like eyes, and his expressionless smile, it is clear that one can understand Mickey Mouse without being told anything about him.

It's important to state that I am the most insufferably sentimental person I know. There are old birthday cards collecting dust in my jam-packed cupboards, stuffed toys their colours long-faded sitting in my bedroom despite their prime cuddling years over, while gifts handmade by friends I no longer talk to take up real estate on my cluttered shelves. You couldn't pay me to part with any of them.

The emotional hit was something I didn't expect, although perhaps I should have. The Commodore 64 Ultimate, a new version of the legendary 8-bit computer, comes in a box designed to resemble the original packaging a photo of the machine itself on a background of deep blue fading into a series of white stripes. Then when you open it, you find an uncannily accurate replica of what fans lovingly referred to as the breadbox the chunky, sloped Commodore 64, in hues of brown and beige,