Life in the 80's

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The Best 80s Nostalgia Site on the Web!
2007-02-27 16:11:00
Congratulations. You have found pure 80s Nostalgia ! Please browse the categories to the left. Review and remember 80s Films, 80s Toys, 80s TV, 80s Clothes, 80s Music and much more!Feel that somethings missing? Well Email Me! what you want to see and I'll put it on the site. Want to write your own article and have it published on the site? Well then Email Me!Take a trip down memory lane. Jog those 80s memories. Just browse the links an categories to the left.Skill.
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80s Christmas Films
2006-12-27 04:24:01
Hi - Im back. Sorry - been busy! Anyway - heres a list of my favorite Chris t mas 80s Film s:National Lampoons Christmas VacationChevy Chase is an absolute hero. Any film with him in it is excellent. Griswald at his bestTrading PlacesThis film first got me interested in boobsDie Hard Its a christmas film, I promise youLethal WeaponAgain, trust me its a christmas film.Santa Claus The MoviePoor.Blackadders Christmas CarolEdmond at his best. Pure British ComedyA Christmas Vacation I love Chevy ChaseStill on the lookout for guest articles. Despite many promises, nothing forthcoming (Phil and Andy pull your finger out!)
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Family Ness
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Proper 80s Cartoon!!! Pretty much a UK thing I think - it was done by the same guy who later went on to produce Penny Crayon and Jimbo the Jet Set. Remember those? The Ness ies were great, I can remember it so well, which is surprising, because for the most part my memory is completely shot! Mr McTout playing the bagpipes, and Ferociousness eating the sound on the intro. Bizarre! We all know about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, however in this cartoon, there was whole family of them.Typical Episode. One day, the two children of the lochs owner, Elspeth and Angus come across a huge mound next to the loch. It turns out that it is one of said mosters, Sillyness, who managed to get his head stuck in a hole. The two children try to pull the stuck Nessy out, and encounter more from the family. As a reward for helping out, despite the Nessys rule of never having any contact with humans, they are given secret thistle whistles which they can use to call the Nessys any time they wish. An...
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Break Dancing
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Big thanks to Jen for the comments, and for sharing her memories of the 80s. Brilliant!!Getting a girls perspective is great, as I personally never had leg warmers, or the flashdance sweater over the shoulder thing! (Honestly, I know I like Top Gun, but Im not like that!)One thing Jen mentioned that I had completely forgotten about, was Brea k Dancing , or at least attempting to breakdance! My friends and me used to love it!I thought I was brilliant at it, and it basically involved bizarre gymnastic floor exercises, and thinking you looked as cool as the people in the Beat It video. The moves I can remember were the Caterpillar (I tried to replicate this before writing this post, and nearly broke my back. I guess I am not as flexible as I used to be!)Others were the Windmill, Backspin and Headspin. I attempted all of them in the 80s but was pretty rubbish. Looking back now, it?s amazing that parents actually used to let their kids do this, as it seems pretty damn dangerous thing to at...

Raleigh Vektar
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Now, I received an email from a friend yesterday that asked if I remembered a bike from the 80's that was white, and had a futuristic control panel in the middle, that had lights and noises etc. I did indeed remember such a bike, and duly went about trying to find out what it was called by doing some R&D on the web. It was then that I stumbled across This blog. It's by a girl who is keeping the 80's alive by riding around on a pimped out Raleigh Grifter. Cool. Not only did her blog make me laugh, it also had a post about the bike in question! I had found the holy grail! I immiediatley knew that Hans post summed the bike up perfectly, and I would not be able to do it justice. So, with Hans kind permission, her post is copied below. Enjoy!Originally posted on Cakey Voice, July 5th 2005."A Shadowy Flight into the dangerous world of a bike I do not own.....""So, my front bike tyre has developed an unsightly, not to mention dangerous, hernia. The tyres on my bike are almost completely...
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Danger Mouse
2006-12-02 16:05:03
The world is in constant peril, and our only hope is a small mouse with one eye, who's best friend is a small hamsted, and they live in a post box in the middle of Mayfair. Hmmm. Still, this didnt seem to bother anyone, as Danger mouse was one of the funniest cartoons of the 80s.The voice of Dangermouse was narrated by David Jason, of Only Fools and Horses fame! Honestly, this cartoon was so full of humour, it really used to make me laugh. In fact it still does!!It was a blatant parody of all British Spy fiction, including James Bond. It was also the first British cartoon that broke into the American TV Market, and was aired on Nickelodeon in the 1980s. It was tremendously popular.Some of the Characters:-DangerMouse -Penfold -Colonel K-Agent 57-Baron Greenback-Stiletto Mafiosa (The Crow)An interesting fact, is that in the UK the crow had an Italian accent, and was changed in the US over fears it would offend Italian American people. So in the USA he had a cockney accent. Also, they ...
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Street Hawk
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Wow. Thats really all there is to say about this awesome programme. Thats not really much of a post though?. So heres some more!Street Hawk was a short lived television series that aired back in 1985 on ABC. It lasted only one season and there was only 13 episodes ever made (what a shame!).The show was about a cop name Jessie Mach who was picked to test a top secret government project called Street Hawk. His partner Norman Tuttle, the designer of the motorcycle, was in charge of the project.Jessie would cruise the streets of L.A. on the bike while Norman sat back at command center guiding Jessie. Together they would fight crime on the Streets of Los Angeles. It would go 180 mph in traffic while firing small rockets, have a total video uplink to the master crime lab in his helmet, and a racing suit form-fitted to his body by immersing him in a vat of high-tech foam!The show followed the templates of the other television shows of the futuristic crime-fighting vehicle genre of the 80s...
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Womens 80s Fashion. Guest Blogger Edition!
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Hi there readers! My name is Jen and I am filling in today as a guest blogger for my good friend Alastair! His 80s blog has really got the memories going about how I lived thru the 80s and lived to tell about it!I grew up in the 80s and I had a total blast! The 80s were some of the best times of my life! Alastair has asked me to be his guest blogger from time to time and today I have chosen to write about 80s fashion from a girlie point of view.I can easily say that without a doubt that I had fallen prey to some of the 80s fashion that took the world by storm! Yes, I had the big hair, the 10,000 bracelets on my arms, lots of eye makeup and I had the 80s clothing! I had the jellie shoes, the bracelets, L.A. Gear shoes, Jordache Jeans, spandex and all.In the early 80s circa 1981 to 1983 women everywhere either sported the Pat Benatar look or the Olivia Newton John exercise look. Their attire was very similiar, with both spandex, braided headbands and short no fuss hair. Women everywhe...
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Rubiks Cube
2006-12-02 16:05:03
I challange anyone that says they never owned a Rubik 's cube. Everyone had one, and I mean everyone. There was also the Rubik's Snake.Now I was pretty rubbish at both. Although for some reason it was highly, highly addictive to kids and adults alike.Kids would spend hours and hours hunched over, working this thing like crazy, with a furrowed brow. Give one to me now, and I would be bored within 2 minutes.I remember in the 80s you would always see someone on the news, probably called Sebastian from 'special school' in Coventry or something, and he would be some 14 year old kid with a ridiculously smug smile because he had made the national news having been able to complete the Rubik's cube in, like, 8 seconds or something.I couldn't even pull the stickers off and put them back on the the right way in 8 seconds.With the Rubiks snake, I could make the dog, and.... well..... the snake. I think you could also make a ball. Hmmm.Rubik's Cube . I remember them well.
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Lego
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Growing up, our house was always full of Lego . Boxes and boxes of damn Lego. There were elaborate trucks made out of it, strange flying machines, entire cities constructed out of these little blocks. Friends would come over and spend hours playing with it. Grandparents, aunts and uncles would marvel at the creations. It was fun. It kept us out of our Parents hair and was great on those rainy days that you couldn?t go outside on your BMX and see who could do the longest skid.Coming from the Danish words LEg GOdt meaning play well, Lego has been around forever. Ok not forever, but since about the late 40s. However, Lego as we know it started appearing in the 60s. In fact, 60s Lego blocks will still fit together with blocks bought today.It was seen at the Brighton Toy Fair for the first time in 1960 - and the blocks took Britain by storm, massively outselling the Loopyloop (whatever the hell that was) Nowadays it seems you can only get Lego items as a whole, for example, a Lego Space S...

More posts to come
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I know its been over a month since the last blast from the past from the 1980s.I currently have a bank of true children of the 80s working on some excellent posts that will really jog those 80s memories so keep your eye on Life in the 80s. Im still here, and more posts will appear here within a matter of days.There is so much more to cover such as Top Trumps, matchbox cars, 80s music and more. If you would like to post an article on this site, just click on the links to the left and email me.Watch this space. The 80s WILL be kept alive on this site for years to come!!Skill
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Days of Thunder
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Basically, Top Gun with Cars. Strictly speaking, it shouldnt even be here anyway because I think it came out in 1990, but I loved the damn film so what the hell!"There's nothing stock about a stock car" Robert Duvall, wise old dude who builds stock cars, and talks to them, tooCars. Cars cars cars cars. Vroom! Vroom vroom vroom! Crash! Tom and Nicole have sex! Cars cars vroom vroom! Crash! Vroom!There. Youve just seen Days of Thunder . Or, if thats not enough for you, think about Top Gun, and substitute stock cars for fighter jets and there you go."Theres nothing I can't do with a race car!" -- Tom Cruise, who races stock cars despite the fact he's from CaliforniaCole Trickle has not one but two tragic secrets that keep him from trusting anyone or becoming the sleek, winning driver his raw talent suggests he could be.Will he wisen up enough to learn to trust Harry, who built the car he races in NASCAR events for Tim Daland ? Will he succeed in his quest to play doctor with neurosur...
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Links to all Previous Posts
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Click below to go to other 80's stuff thats been reviewed and remembered here!Connect 4Buck RogersSuper TedToys from NatureLegoWomens 80s FashionStreet HawkDanger MouseNESRaleigh VektarBreak DancingFamily NessSwatch/Digital WatchesButton MoonYo Yo's80s ComputersWeird ScienceTeen WolfStar Wars ToysTop GunThe A-TeamChoc-A-BlockManimalSpirographTransf ormersSilly PuttyControl CarsSoda Stream / Mr FrostyThe Broom CupboardGarbage Pail KidsFraggle RockRubik?s CubeKnight RiderJunior Kick StartMaskScalextricSpokey DokesThundercats Ho!Big TrakBBC Micro / ZX SpectrumThe 80s
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Connect 4
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Connect for was one of the great 80s games. Its greatness was due to its simplicity. Also, apologies due to the lack of posts recently. This is due to starting my new job this week. I have not had much time to post, so I am afraid that this one is also short.Pretty much everything I, and no doubt you also loved about this game can be remembered by playing it right now against the computer!Just click here to play right now.Skill.Next posts will be about a classic 80s movie so watch this space!
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Buck Rogers
2006-12-02 16:05:03
Buck used to be a BBC Saturday teatime institution! Its certainly one of my clear childhood memories. It had that sort of not taking itself too seriously feel that Stargate has today.Sure, you can spot the flaws in effects and acting compared with todays shows, but hey, considering when it was made, it was ahead of its time really.The basic principle of the show is that Buck Rogers is a former NASA astronaut whose shuttle goes on a little detour. The result is that he ends up back at Earth a little behind schedule having been turned into a human lollipop for the best part of 500 years. Unlikely? Perhaps.When I first saw the show, the acting wasnt really an issue. I loved the futuristic special effects, and, of course, the spaceships. The ship that Wilma flies, and that Buck also adopts, is very simply called a Starfighter. It was one of my favorite Corgi toys of the early eighties. It could go Interatmospheric for gods sake. Yeaah!Enemies tended to use Hatchet fighters, perhaps beca...
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Super Ted
2006-12-02 16:05:03
This 80s cartoon was originally a Welsh cartoon, and later dubbed into English. It did actually make it to the US in the 90s under the name of Super Ted Returns or something, but it was quite different, with Spotty remaining the only original cast member. Each episode would begin with the story on how SuperTed came to be.This is a story about an ordinary teddy bear. When he was made, they found something wrong with him, and threw him away like a piece of rubbish into an old dark storeroom. Then from outer space, a spotty man bought him back to life with his cosmic dust. He took him to a magic cloud where Mother Nature gave him special powers. That bear became Super Ted!I have very fond memories of coming home from school and watching this as a kid in the late 80s. His mortal enemies were Texas Pete, with his sidekicks skeleton and Bulk. His best friend and savior was Spotty.SuperTed's powers are activated by his secret magic word, which (as the name suggests) remains a secret. Super...

Toys from Nature
2006-12-02 16:05:03
I am off on a lovely 2 week holiday tonight, so Life in the 80s will not have any updates for a few weeks.I thought I would leave you all with some memories of playing outside on summer days back in the 80s.In the 1980s there was a lack of Ipods, Playstations and other gadgetry, so your entertainment would often be sourced from nature. Days spent playing hide and seek in wheat fields, ruining crops in farmers fields and running around in the woods were well spent as far as I am concerned.There is the obvious stuff like climbing trees, riding your bike in the fields, and exploring, but nature also had other uses for imaginative 8 year olds with time on their hands.Below are some of my favourite Toy s of Natur e that I remember.Grass DartsThese were the little things that you could find growing all over the place in fields and stuff. The great thing was you could throw them a surprisingly long way, with a good degree of accuracy. They would embed themselves into hair, clothing, shoes, e...

NES
2006-08-30 09:40:00
Courtesy of Simon , today we have a guest post about this wonderful system from the 80's. Gotta say it tickled some memories for me... I had totally forgotten about this!!Be sure to check out Simons Blog as it's a damn funny read!Enjoy!What 80's themed blog could not have an article about this piece of Japanese wizardry!Released in 1985 it was the HOT HOT product for the christmas season.This was fun in a box! It even came with a game cartridge to get you started. Actually it was a cartridge with two games in it Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt.With Duck Hunt you got to use the Zapper gun, also included with the basic system.While Duck Hunt was fun, I think that most people got hooked on the other game Super Mario. For most consumers this was the first In Home video game that they owned.I bought one for the kids in 85, and over the christmas break I played it day in day out for aa week! By the time New Years rolled around my thumbs were paralysed from using the controller.By the wa...

Swatch / Digital 80s Watches
2006-08-20 15:35:00
Thanks to CT for the comment on the last post and reminding me about this!The swatch, and 80s watches in general were brilliant. Todays watches are rubbish. The 80s ones were a fad that caught on around the playground pretty quick in the 80s.There were basically two types of people. The digital watch people and those that had swatches. Both types of people would routinely wear 2, 3, sometime four or five watches at a time. Why? God only knows. But it seemed like the right thing to do back in 1985. I personally loved the digital watches. First of all the calculator one came out by Casio. Brilliant. Then, you had the one with the A to Z keyboard and a slightly angled screen. This was my favorite, and it still looks futuristic today. I want one again! They were so cool.In addition to the calculator and computer watches from Japan, you had the game watches. Well ahead of their time, you would usually have two buttons, and the only one I ever owned was a football game that I swapped with...
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Button Moon
2006-08-18 11:55:00
If were honest, the 80s were completely mental as far as kids TV was concerned. Looking back on it now is a very strange experience!I swear the 80s was just one big experiment by the government to test the impact of severe surrealism on young children.If you never watched Butt on Moon as a kid, then youve no idea what I am talking about.Button moon was a purely British thing (I can’t honestly imagine it was shown anywhere else) and it was on Thames television (you must remember the logo!) The Spoon family consisted of Mr. Spoon, Mrs. Spoon, and Tina.Each episode would basically consist of zooming off on their rocket, into Blanket Sky, and go to Button Moon.There they have some surreal experience with a giant tea chest or something and just before returning home, they have a look through their telescope to see what else is happening, such as the Hare and the Tortoise, before heading back to their home planet Junk PlanetWatching Button Moon now would be bloody hilarious. The sub...

Yo Yo's
2006-08-17 09:30:00
Now this isn’t really 80s as they have been around for a VERY long time. But I had one in the 80s, so who cares. It’s here! A playground favourite for millions of school children the world over, the yoyo is actually, according to some historians, one of the oldest toys around. Museums hold ample examples of terra cotta yoyos from ancient Greece, and wall paintings in Egyptian temples are said to depict playthings recognisable to the modern eye. While there is little evidence to support the theory that yoyos were once used as weapons, both combatants at Waterloo, Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, were said to be aficionados. The name yoyo was first brought to the attention of western society in a 1916 Scientific American article on toys from the Philippines. Major advances in yoyo technology followed after 1955 when Duncan introduced the first plastic yoyos and the Butterfly shaped yo-yo, which is easier to land on the string for fancy tricks. These are the ones I re...

80's Computers
2006-08-16 09:59:00
Now, I know I have already posted about the Spectrum and BBC Micro, but 80s computers were the greatest, and there is so much more to say!Before the Xbox, before the PS2, the N64, the Snes, The Mega CD, the Megadrive. etc. there were 80s Comp uter s .The joy of those computers was something else. They were so user friendly. So much fun… they just don’t make em like they used to! Sure, the graphics were nothing compared to what we have now but I loved them. Spending 12 hours to load the damn thing from a cassette. Brilliant!Dont know about the US, but here in the UK when we had the Megadrive, you could get the American one, or the Jap one, and the game cartridges were a slightly different shape, so yo ucouldnt put Jap games in the US machine. The one to have was the Jap one as that fitted all the games!Another computer craze I loved in the 80s were the small hand held ones you used to get. Hours and hours spent playing Donkey Kong. (I had one of the futuristic dual screen D...

Weird Science
2006-08-15 13:22:00
Very good film and I have very fond memories of watching it, sitting in my stone washed jeans with Le Cost or Le Shark T-shirt, my LA Gear trainers twiddling my Yo Yo. (!)The basic plot: Two super-nerd, Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), unable to find girls on their own, hack into a US Government mainframe and use government technology to create a computer simulation of the perfect woman in order to place her in real life sexual situations and see how she reacts.Mysteriously, the result is Lisa (Kelly LeBrock), a real-life woman and sexed-up but deeply caring 80s babe with Einsteins IQ, David Lee Roths attitude and inexplicable sci-fi powers. Absolutely gorgeous, then and now!Self aware from the moment of her creation, Lisa sets about revealing their inner coolness, transforming Gary and Wyatt from nerds into men through a series of wacky and bizarre adventures, which include summoning the cast of The Road Warrior to crash a party at Wyatt' house, turning...
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Teen Wolf
2006-08-14 11:00:00
Now, instead of running away in horror, or attacking his house with torches and pitchforks, when the townsfolk is Scott Howards hometown find out he is a werewolf, they embrace him and he quickly becomes the most popular guy around.Strange, because in real life the hairiest kid in school would be beaten up and laughed at. He also develops a 10 foot high vertical leap, which must come in quite handy for the 4 foot 3 inch pint sized Michael J Fox.My favourite bit is when he reveals himself to his dad, and the bathroom door opens to reveal Scotts dad in full wolf mode, looking more like a Care Bear. Hahaha.The basketball scenes were brilliant too (as if a munchkin like Michael J Fox would ever be allowed near a basket ball team). The film on the whole was your basic coming of age affair, where he pined for the blonde bombshell, while ignoring the obvious love of his best friend BoofStyles was the coolest character in the film, a party animal with an entrepreneurial streak. The most fam...
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Star Wars Toys
2006-08-09 09:44:00
I, as every 80s kid did, loved these toys. Everybody had them, and youd build huge bases with your friends and play all day long. Below you will find some of my favourites:The Speeder Bike was a brilliant little toy. I used to run around with this thing making car noises until I crashed into a wall. Not just once, it happened fairly often. Aside from being a good representation of the vehicle from the film, the Speeder Bike had a button you could press to make the entire thing explode into small pieces. I mean, really small pieces. Once you made the thing explode, chances were good that you werent going to find all the pieces again. I originally had 2, although you could only muster up 1 complete bike from the leftover pieces.Action Figures were great too. I had Luke (I actually had 5 Lukes, and every single one had the hand bitten off from when I had re-enacted the fight where he loses his hand. I also had storm troopers (white and red) and the Rancor beast thing, among others.Jabb...
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Top Gun
2006-08-07 09:41:00
My Favorite film of the 1980s. By a long way. I have watched it hundreds of times, and I could go on and on and on and on about it here for years. My friend and I find that we can communicate through Top Gun Quotes alone, so I thought rather than go on about the film I would just give you some quotes:Iceman: You two really are cowboys.Maverick: What's your problem, Kazanski?Iceman: You're everyone's problem. That's because everytime you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous.Maverick: That's right! Ice... man. I am dangerous.Charlie: Excuse me, Lieutenant. Is there something wrong?Maverick: Yes ma'am, the data on the MiG is inaccurate.Charlie: How's that, Lieutenant?Maverick: Well, I just happened to see a MiG 28 do a...Goose: We!Maverick: Uh, sorry Goose. WE happened to see a MiG 28 do a 4g negative dive.Charlie: Where did you see this?Maverick: Uh, that's classified.Charlie: It's what?Maverick: It's classified. I could tell you, but...

The A-Team
2006-08-03 10:15:00
Ten years ago, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as Soldiers of Fortune. If no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A -Team .The best programme, not just of the 80s, but of all time. Absolutely brilliant. I actually still own most of them on DVD, and they are still just as good, and just as entertaining as they always were. Great Van, and a cool corvette. Brilliant.Face Man, BA Baracus, Hannibal Smith & Howlin Mad Murdoch. A typical episode starts with the A-Team being hired by a down-trodden or terrorized client. The 'official' way of doing this was for the client to contact one of Hannibal's many comic aliases that were used to ensure that their clients were not working for the military. Basically, Hannibal with a fake beard.Then, there would be an exp...

Manimal
2006-07-31 20:28:00
Basically some poor James Bond/Knight Rider affair, except this dude could morph himslef into any anumal. Great programme with a great title, "Manimal".Glen Larson's crime-fighting shape-shifter was a man who could turn into ANY animal. Any animal at all. As long as that animal is a panther.OK Ill admit if he can do a hawk too if he can be bothered, but usually after the bubbling hand bit, we always ended up seeing the panther.Its not so much that special effects technology didn't exist in 1983, it's just that network TV could not afford them.Production costs were high and pretty much all of it was ear marked for all that Manimalization, so low ratings meant they only made about 4 episodes or something.They replayed them on Bravo not long ago. Watched them all and they reallly did make me laugh. Very funny, and very poor all at the same time. The funniest thing that I've noticed, is that Simon McCorkindale (the titular Manimal) is now the lead doctor in Casualty.I thought it was...