Quick note - sorry about Marc's audio. With recording three people, the mic setup wasn't optimal for Marc and his daughter. We'll do better next time. But Marc's audio isn't the important bits of the episode anyway. Enjoy!

The flushing toilet is the most important machine in your house and the one you think about least. We use one six to eight times a day for our whole lives without a second thought, which, when you flush it through, is a remarkable engineering achievement.
Rome had running-water toilets two thousand years ago, watched the idea swirl down the drain when the empire fell, and didn't pick it back up until the 1590's, when Queen Elizabeth's "saucy godson" Sir John Harington invented the first proper flush toilet. Things start to flow after a Scottish watchmaker invents the S-bend in 1775, a Victorian plumber called Thomas Crapper builds his name into a coincidence too perfect to waste, and the Great Stink of 1858 finally drives Parliament to build the sewers that become the single biggest reason most of us are alive. Then we wash up in Japan, where TOTO treats the toilet as serious technology, and we close on the billions of people who still do not have a safe toilet at all.
Special guest: a twelve-year-old history buff, a genuine Tudor expert, who carries the Harington section of our story.

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Tomorrow we talk about a piece of tech that was millennia in the making. The humble flush toilet. We have a special guest coming in to record on this one to help us with the story.

But you can't make a song about flushing toilets without thinking about the things that water washes away. Physical and emotional. So, this song is all about flushing things away. And the little trap that keeps the bad stuff from coming up and stinking up your life again.

Lyrics below

[Verse 1]
End of a long Tuesday
Closed the door behind me
The day went down the drain
The way the days do
Water did its work
Carried what it could
Watched it disappear
The way I wished it would
[Pre-Chorus]
But somewhere down the bend
Where the water always sits
The smallest of the things
The smallest of the things
[Chorus]
I'll flush it away
I'll flush it away
But the trap holds a little
Of every yesterday
I'll flush it away
I'll flush it away
But a small part of you
Won't be carried away
[Verse 2]
Wedding ring down the drain
Wine poured out in the sink
Tears unseen in the shower
A day rinsed off my hands
Water takes things away
What it can, what it can
Underneath, beneath the bend
Is where the rest of it falls
[Pre-Chorus]
And somewhere down the bend
Where the water always sits
The deepest of the things
The deepest of the things
[Chorus]
I'll flush it away
I'll flush it away
But the trap holds a little
Of every yesterday
I'll flush it away
I'll flush it away
But a small part of you
Won't be carried away
[Bridge]
I used to think the water
Would carry every drop
But the curve below the bowl
Was always there to stop
Just enough to remember
Just enough to know
Some of what I let go
Is some of what I owe
[Final Chorus]
I'll flush it away
I'll flush it away
But the trap holds a little
Of every yesterday
I'll flush it away
I'll flush it away
And a small part of you
Stays here with me
[Outro - vocal fading]
Stays here with me
Stays here with me

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Payphones were infrastructure until they weren't. They weren't missed until they were.
At their peak there were about two and a half million of them in America, one on what felt like every corner, and a dime got you anyone in the country. By 2018 there were about a hundred thousand left, most of them dead. The first one turned up in a Hartford bank in 1889. The last public one in Manhattan left ceremoniously in 2022, with a press release, like a retiring quarterback.
In between, the booth became a cultural object (Superman changed in one, every spy movie needed one). Drug crews turned payphones into open-air offices, so cities pulled the phones out of the neighbourhoods that leaned on them hardest. Then the cell phone showed up and the whole thing fell over in about a decade.
We'd decided a fire hydrant was a public good and a payphone was a business. When the business stopped paying, the phones came down, starting with the corners that could least afford to lose them. Then Katrina knocked out the cell towers, and the payphones still bolted to the wall had lines of people waiting at them. Turns out the thing you last cursed at for eating your quarter was was doing a job you'd written off years ago.

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Tomorrow's episode is on pay phones. A technology that was once essential until mobile phones became ubiquitous. There's a lot of history (and nostalgia) that Marc and Renee love to gab about. So tune in tomorrow for the full episode.

But...you can't talk about pay phones without talking about paying. The scene...small town, unfamiliar territory, sun going down. You need to get out of here and your cousin Susan is the only person that is close enough to come get you. But you have one slightly worn quarter and there's only one pay phone in sight. What ensues is an epic battle of wills. You...anger and determination to call Susan. The pay phone...stoic, unyielding, silent. It won't relent and won't let you dial. Then finally it feels like you'll be able to dial and it steals your quarter. There's never been a more rage-inducing moment.

Lyrics below:

[Verse 1]
I've got to call my cousin
She's the only one for miles who'll come
No shop, no soul, no signal
Just this phone and the going-down sun
One quarter left to my name
Last one, warm in my hand
And the dial tone hums like a promise
Like it finally understands
[Refrain]
Quarter in
Quarter out
It will not hold the line
I just need to call my Susan
One more time
[Verse 2]
I try again, my hand is shaking
There's a click, and then a pause
Then a bell that isn't a bell
I think it caught, so I start to dial
Halfway through her number now
Then the quarter drops right through
And the line goes dead somehow
[Refrain]
Quarter in
Quarter out
It will not hold the line
I just need to call my Susan
One more time
[Bridge]
Then it takes it
Lord, it takes it
And it gives me back a hiss
No tone, no Susan, no operator
Just nothing, only this
You're a thief
You're a quarter thief
And I'm screaming at a box
On an empty road
And the sun going down
[Outro]
Then the cloud breaks
And the cars roll back
And the people on the corner stare
At a grown adult in a standoff
With a phone that doesn't care
I, I just wanted to call Susan

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First things, first. We have merch. Silly, yes, but available here. Now onto the show...

Have you ever pressed your face to the window in a plane as a kid and stared at the wing thinking flying shouldn't work? Have you ever sat in seat 23B with the baby crying five rows up and perfume getting reapplied three rows over and wished for just forty minutes of respite?

Of course you have. Passenger jet aviation is one of the most transformative things humanity has ever built, and most of us experience it as a tube we sit in until we arrive somewhere else. But, it wasn't always the cattle-car experience we have today.

Marc and Renee love aviation and flying and this episode traces that tube from Frank Whittle, the British inventor who patented the jet engine in 1930, to the de Havilland Comet (which kept falling out of the sky because of square windows), to Boeing betting big on a plane nobody asked for, to the Concorde flying Mach 2 over the Atlantic for twenty-seven years while burning fuel like a small country, to the 787 quietly changing what eight hours in a metal tube feels like on your body. Along the way: Juan Trippe deciding ordinary people should be allowed to fly, the 1973 oil crisis rewriting the economics of flight, and the disappointing realisation that the shower on the first-class A380 was never going to be for you.

If you have ever waved a thanks to a flight attendant who couldn't possibly see you, paid four dollars for a small bottle of water at thirty-five thousand feet, or sat through a connection in Charlotte Douglas wondering whether there is some kind of cosmic law requiring every American flight to route through there, this one's for you.

Check out the Mouselets for civil engineering and Disney - https://www.youtube.com/@TheMouselets

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Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

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Next episode is all about the development of passenger planes. So, this week our song is about that emotionally stressful situation that air travel has turned into.

The bare feet where they shouldn't be. Loud talkers. Hogging the arm rests. Passive aggressive travelers.

It felt like a blues song in A Minor. But mashed together with our Season 2 house band's yacht rock groove.

Lyrics below.

[Verse 1]
I boarded last, no room in the overhead bin
Lord, I boarded last, no room in the bin
Walked down to twenty-three and squeezed myself in
Man in C wouldn't lift his knee
No that Man in C won't lift that knee
Woman in A pulled the shade down, didn't wanna see
[Chorus]
I'm in 23B
Just B
Window went to A
Aisle went to C
I got what was left
I'm in 23B
Just B
[Verse 2]
Baby's been crying since we left the gate
Lord, that baby's been crying since we left the gate
Smell of perfume keeps me wondering what I ate
Bare feet on the headrest, three rows in front of me
Bare feet on the headrest, three rows in front of me
Wanted forty minutes of quiet, can't get forty seconds free
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
There used to be a dinner
There used to be a tie
There used to be a meaning
To getting in the sky
Now I'm boarding group five
With my one allowed bag
The seat reclines an inch
And nothing comes round for free
[Final Chorus]
I'm in 23B
Just B
Window went to A
Aisle went to C
I got what was left
I'm in 23B
Just B

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Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

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Have you ever sat at a red light at 2 AM with no traffic in any direction and waited anyway? Have you ever rolled through that same red light 2 AM and felt vaguely guilty about it?
Of course you have. The traffic light is the most obeyed command in human history. Rarely enforced (unless you're in the UK like Marc). No officer in sight. Just a coloured light on a pole, and a near-universal agreement to stop when it's red and go when it's green.
This episode traces the humble traffic signal from the gas-lit lantern that exploded outside the Houses of Parliament in 1868 (yes, exploded, three weeks in) to the adaptive AI systems that watch real-time traffic and adjust timing in milliseconds. Along the way: railroad colour conventions, William Potts in Detroit and Garrett Morgan in Cleveland, the political question of whose green is longer, the inductive loop that can't see your bicycle, and the moment where you discover that the colour you grew up calling yellow is officially called amber once you cross an ocean.
Ride along with Marc and Renee through another look at a technology that became infrastructure as it spread beyond its humble beginnings.

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There are songs and poems about the red and green lights. But what about Amber? Shy. Fleeting. Amber has a job too.

This week's episode is about traffic lights and it felt appropriate to cast our gaze at the glowing amber hue and dedicate this week's song to the lesser-loved traffic light colour.

[Verse 1]
Three seconds is all I get
Between the start and the stop
You look at me like you know
What I'm trying to say
Brake a little early
Gas a little late
Either way you're answering
Something I never quite said

[Chorus]
I'm amber
Just amber
You stop for the red
You rushin' past the green
I'm just Amber in the middle
I'm amber
Just amber

[Verse 2]
Songs get written for red
Poems for green
No one writes about warning
That sits in between
I've got a job in the system
I slow the whole town down
I'm the breath that the city takes
In that moment unseen

[Chorus]
I'm amber
Just amber
You stop for the red
You rushin' past the green
I'm just Amber in the middle
I'm amber
Just amber

[Bridge]
I don't get named in the story
I don't get time in the scene
I'm just the turn of a second
Between what was and what's been
You're already leaving
Before I begin
I'm gone in a heartbeat
Like I've never been

[Final Chorus]
I'm amber
Just amber
You stop for the red
You rushin' past the green
I'm just Amber in the middle
I'm amber
Just amber

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Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

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Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.