Evolution? Technological progress? Things always improve with time? Not always- when I wanted to know what channel was on TV at someone's house and realised the big red LED number that told you wasn't there, and isn't on new sets, it got me checking. How many other things actually deteriorate over time, leaving us worse off in the future than we were in the past? Quite a lot actually, I've started a list:

Most cars used to have leather seats and wooden dashboards including the cheapest models like the Ford Popular etc. Now unless you get a top model it's 100% plastic. However good a car looks like outside, inside it all looks the same.

Due to changes in regulations, new houses can now have the smallest room sizes in over a hundred years. Furniture is frequently now too small for many houses.

Old train tickets were printed and on thick card. Most are now on thin card or paper and typed on dot matrix printers which went out in the 80s everywhere else.

The square satellite aerials that replaced the large round ones went bust and are no longer used despite being much smaller and just as powerful.

You could take a hovercraft from here to France in 20 minutes for £5 return. Now it's either a train for over £100 or a boat which takes hours.

Concorde could cross the Atlantic in a few hours, now it's back to around 7, as it was 60 years ago. There was a prototype in the 70s that could cross the world in a few hours, but as it needed international cooperation to pay for it, it was stillborn.

Try getting gold top milk from the milkman. It's all taken out for the industry's own use now, unless you find it in a rare supermarket. Even that hasn't got cream at the top for some reason.

Try finding new furniture made of dark wood. Even the ones that look it are either veneer or stained pine. I know it's running out, but you can still buy it, if you pay about £1000 for a bookshelf for example. Otherwise it's all MDF, which is actually very similar in effect to asbestos while being cut, but no one's banned it at it's so cheap.

This was a list that took me around half an hour to think of so I'm sure it's just the beginning- can you add to it? I know most things are better, but that's normal really, holding back or reversing progress shouldn't be but they get away with it as big business agree short cuts to save money, or governments make new rules that make certain things illegal or uneconomic. How much did the LED number save the TV industry for goodness sake? It's easy to spend 5 minutes watching the wrong programme now as you can't tell which cahnnel you're watching- I've done it enough times and I can't believe it's just me, (is it?)...