Nostalgia and the past is more exciting than the future.

A lot of people like to reminisce about the good old days and remembering the happier times of the growing up years.

It seems all areas are affected as a wave of nostalgia is sweeping through the movie, music, fashion, food and beverage industry.

It's not uncommon to see chip shops putting newspaper around the chips again. Recently a bakery started putting bread back in paper bags, they claim products like this take people back to the simple times, and that's really what people are looking for, they remind themselves of days when things were quieter, a little less rushed.

In New Zealand they're re-launching a drink popular more than 30 years ago. Other retro drinks include Jungle Juice, this time with real fruit in a bottle instead of the old fruit-flavoured sachets that disappeared in the mid-80s.

Madonna may be number one in the music industry but even her latest look is making Disco from the 1980's groovy. So maybe the time is right for another resurge of the Saturday Night Fever in the coming year.

Why is there such a passion for things of the past?

"Growing up in England, we had a very positive image of the seventies and eighties - I think television programmes like the A-Team, The Dukes of Hazard, even Zoom ice-lollies are synonymous with all of that," says Z Clements,

skooldays.com managing director.

In fact nostalgia is everywhere. This is why we see re-makes of King Kong, The Dukes of Hazard, Spiderman and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to name a few. No doubt we will see Hong Kong Phooey and Wacky Races as box office hits if we hang around long enough.

This is another factor why Ebay is so popular. One person I spoke to recently managed to re-collect all their childhood annuals at a drop of a hat. Nostalgic metal lunchboxes are another huge market as they were banned in the 1980's due to health and safety.

With the internet so full of nostalgic information, the past is more exciting than the future.