Friday, February 24, 2006

Rumbelows and Fine Fare

As I'm surgically connected to the internet, it disappoints me that I've only recently realised just how much time you can waste looking at completely pointless yet remarkably endearing articles on Wikipedia. Reading a few articles ahead of Sunday's Carling Cup Final, I was amused to find the only time Manchester United has previously won the competition was one of the years it was sponsored by Rumbelows. Being an inquisitive kind of guy, I decided to find out - via Wikipedia of course - just what had happened to this beloved chain. An asset of the monstrous and also now defunct ThornEMI, it was sold off in the mid-1990s to a company that went bust. I then found this wonderful page, giving a complete run-down of company names that no longer exist. It's a fantastic page and I was pleased to see Acorn Computers, a former DannyG favourite, high on the list. From the info about ThornEMI, another mystery was solved. Racal never moved out of my favourite Reading building (the curvy one next to the station), it simply changed its name to Thales.
Initially I was disappointed that Fine Fare and International - previous stalwarts of the high street in my home town of Wellington, Somerset - were not there. Both were since sucked into Somerfield. Relief was complete, though, when I found mention of both on this page. Aaah.

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