Goodbye Argos catalogue, the laminated book of dreams

After almost 50 years, Argos has announced that it will no longer print its famous catalogue.

For decades, you were as likely to find a copy of the Argos catalogue in a British home as you were likely to find a tin of baked beans. But as the public steadily turn away from the high street and take their shopping online, the iconic catalogue is being laid to rest. “As most customers are now browsing and ordering online, we have decided that the time is right to stop printing the Argos catalogue," Simon Roberts, chief executive of Argos’ parent company Sainsbury’s, said. “Removing the printed catalogue helps us to flex our range and offers and to be more competitive on price.” The fact that you can even describe a catalogue as iconic is a testament to the place that giant wodge of thin, shiny paper holds in British culture. At one point it was the most-printed publication in Europe, second only to the Bible. It was as ubiquitous as the Yellow Pages, another chunky directory laid to waste by the digital age. And for people of a certain age, it was more than a book full of things you could buy. There is not a British person born before 2000 who will not admit to idly browsing the Argos catalogue in moments of desperation, looking to kill 20 minutes while waiting for someone in town. At Christmas, the Argos catalogue was the hymn sheet every child sang from, eagerly flicking through the toy section, circling the Tracy Island play set with such vigour that your parents would have to buy you it this year. And when you just needed a big, sturdy, rectangular object to wedge something open or whack something with, the Argos catalogue was there for you, ready to serve. More than anything, the axing of the Argos catalogue is another marker in the death of tactility, the loss of physical things. DVDs and CDs have been usurped by streaming. Magazines are on their knees - Q Magazine being the latest publication to announce its end. Books are hanging on in there, but e-readers and tablets will continue to get cheaper. And while the Argos catalogue is not, with the best will in the world, a great work of literature, there was a joy in turning those slightly sticky, super-thin pages. But the march of progress carries on, and the old must die to give way to the new. RIP Argos catalogue. Your pages are gone, but your memory lives on.