Welcome. This is what my wife calls "a bunch of stupid jokes and pictures of paper bags." She's right about the jokes. She's wrong about the bags: some of them are plastic.

What the critics say: "Utterly unnotable" (Wikipedia editor). "Ridiculous collections #4" (Buzzfeed). Other comments: "As complete wastes of time go, it's a very high quality complete waste of time... An entirely dispensable source of inane comments about a truly trivial subject... A monument to the planet's worst corporate design... An unwelcome reminder of some of the more unpleasant moments in our lives."

Donations (unused, please) of bags not represented in the bag gallery are welcomed -- please mail to this address, and I'll credit you on this site! I am happy to trade any extras that I have. Check out the links to other bag sites, find out how you can use your spare bags, and explore the fascinating world of bag manufacturers. 

Highlights: The design features page reveals the secrets of professional baggery, and the logos page analyses the enigma of airline corporate identities. Search for your favourite bag, browse the bag gallery by country and airline, and check out the biggest, best and worst bags!

To bagly go

Will barfbags be accompanying humankind on its next great journey - into space? Bags have been around since the dawn of powered flight, and they have already provided sterling service to maintain hygienic conditions on board rockets, including the Space Shuttle. But what of the future? Will they be on board Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two (pictured on the left) carry bags? According to this article in The Economist, Virgin Galactic's president Will Whitehorn says one operator of zero-gravity aeroplane rides has virtually eliminated the vomiting, thanks to a combination of “diet, drugs, training and methodology”. This operator presumably is Las-Vegas-based Zero-G, which offers weightless flights in a specially modified Boeing 727-200. So the future of baggery looks bleak. Are barfbag doomed to remain earthbound? And will cost-cutting airlines learn from approaches used in space? They could save on bags by starving passengers, then drugging them and putting them through a barf training course before allowing them on board. The one hope for baggery appears to be the value of bags to boost the image of airlines. There is already a clear distinction between airlines, such as Virgin Atlantic, that aggressively pursue a bag-based branding strategy, and those which provide boring bags to complement their mediocre onboard service. Ironically, it is often the low-cost airlines that provide passengers with more entertaining bags. Germanwings, for example, has produced a range of innovative designs, while rival HLX counters with puns to advertise its services. Most established carriers, such as Air France, Lufthansa and almost all US-based airlines, seem to think that a video screen and airline magazine are enough to keep their customers entertained while on board. Bagophily.com's seers predict the emergence of a similar distinction in space. Once the initial hype about overpriced short-duration suborbital hops has subsided, expect to see the emergence of a two-tier spaceline industry: innovative start-ups that provide barfbags emblazoned with ritzy holographic logos, and established players that focus on getting passengers from A to Ω at minimum expense, and without any bags.

Thursday, February 14, 2008 

Underbagged

What do Latvia, Liberia and Lesotho have in common? Yes, they all start with an L. What else? They're all missing from my barfbag collection.

What's the biggest country not represented? Chad. In terms of population? Burkina Faso. Other prominent absentees (coloured red in the map): Georgia and Rwanda. 

Major underrepresented portions of the globe are a swathe of Africa and chunks of Central Asia and Central America.

Donations from these areas especially welcome!

Centres of megabagdiversity are the USA (though many US bags are distressingly plain), China, the UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil and Indonesia. 

Click here for details.

For new baggists only

New to the world of bag collecting? Want to get a head start on your collection? Then send me an email, and I'll send you a randomly selected free starter pack from my surplus bag stock. There won't be anything rare, and you may end up with some duplicates, but at least you'll be able to show your friends a few more of these lovely cultural artefacts. Make sure you include your mailing address in your email. Offer good as long as stocks last.

This is where old news goes when it's too old to be news.

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