Colm O'Regan: Remembrance of things past even when they're barely past

How dare things happen so quickly! Ten years since the marriage equality referendum, 20 years since Brokeback Mountain, 25 since the Nokia 3310. 30 years since Naff-Naff jackets, 40 years since Cork 800

Fri, 14 Nov, 2025 - 01:00

Colm O'Regan

‘That’ ad should have a trigger warning. The ad is for a bank. It’s not the grim one where the man drives around morosely looking at houses and his little daughter is in the back seat, like a Ken Loach film but with mortgage advice.

This one is about financial planning. I think the people in it already have houses so it’s about the next step... pensions and whatnot. The people are at the stage of life where they need to start thinking about these things.

In this case 'they' are a friend group. It starts with a flashback to them all dancing together at a gig or festival to the Two Door Cinema Club song ‘What You Know’. You know the song alright, it’s the one from the ad. (It’s also been used to sell instant noodles in Indonesian, it's the theme for the weather forecast in Chile, and for the French Euromillions.)

The people seem sound but I already know they’re not my people because they’re happy to go to a gig or festival with more than one other person. I love meeting people at a gig, but briefly. Any kind of coordination with a group makes me allERGic as we say in Cork

I’m willing to let that slide. It’s not the main problem. The flashback fades and it’s a woman with a couple of children in tow at an eatery where the chips may come in miniature urns. The friends are now 'all growed up' with family and commitments. Then it transitions to an evening do. The song comes on and they all start dancing as they recapture their youth.

The trigger warning should read: 'Warning: This advertisement may contain other people’s nostalgia'.

Cork 800 milk bottle. On nationaltreasures.ie - submitted by Derick Wilkins

Other people’s nostalgia can be distressing. It used to be fine. Other people’s nostalgia was from further in the past... someone going on about 20% interest rates and £1 punt pints. I could deal with that. It comfortably sat in the black-and-white Radharc, era. People smoking everywhere, mass, the labour ward, welding. The pints in straight glasses, All Ireland Final crowds parked on the sideline and standing in the goal.

Radharc is the title of a series of documentaries broadcast by RTÉ between 1962 and 1996. The first programme was aired on January 12, 1962, just 12 days after the new Irish television service was launched. Over the following 34 years, more than 400 programmes were televised.

But at some point, other people’s nostalgia sounded suspiciously like it was for things in the present. That Two Door Cinema Club song was released only the other day and if you say it was 2011 you’re a dirty rotten liar.

The people in the ad are nostalgic for a carefree time and I realise with a shock, I was a boring bollocks with responsibilities then TOO! There is no appreciable difference between then and now and yet for these fictional reminiscers this appears to have been a big chunk of their lives. Stop reminiscing about my present!

I wonder does this happen with previous generations. I never got a chance to ask my parents were they blindsided by people’s misty-eyed memories of the 60s.

But of course people reminisced differently then. There just wasn’t as much group nostalgia. Apart from ballads and they were before everyone’s time.

How dare things happen so quickly! Ten years since the marriage equality referendum, 20 years since Brokeback Mountain, 25 since the Nokia 3310. 30 years since Naf-Naf jackets, 40 years since Cork 800. There’ll always be some anniversary that chills your blood.

It will come to you too young’un. You'll be minding your own business some day, hiding from a drone and a Katseye song will come on and a younger person will say 'Remember when we used to make TikToks to this back in the day?'

And you unplug from your bioport and say through your gills: 'It was NOT back in the day'.

But it was back in their day. Your day was the day before.