You could shove dogshit through someones letterbox

Only the front door though, obvs.

jimdoubleyou

Yes you have a point but even for women it was a time of hope. That I think is the key – live looked to be getting better and the future looked bright.

I miss the joys of ceefax and teletext. Waiting for the cinema listings page and not finding the hold button in time to pause it. Having to wait until it returns back to the same screen.

Riding around on the BMX or Grifter, very few cars and having mini adventures that seemed epic. As DezB said buying music was great. I remember being super excited getting a bus in to town, picking up a new album and listening to it on the Walkman on the way home. I now have a Deezer account bursting with albums I’ve not even heard.

I think it’s more a case of missing being young and carefree rather than anything to do with technology.

I suspect when felt best (on average) varies from place to place. In Britain I’m going for the 1960s – the ’50s still has that air of post-war austerity to it (food rationing didn’t end until 1954) as well as a less inclusive approach to diversity.

Although we’d (had to) let most of the empire go by the end of the 60s, Britain hadn’t got the memo that we were no longer one of the global big players, we still aspired to our own space programme, developing our own nukes, developing (along with France) the bestest passenger jet the world has (still) ever seen… Plus we had the world listening to our music and still watching (some of) our movies.

Alongside that, the liberalisation of culture made the joy more widely accessible (although homosexuality was only legalised in ’67).

The 70s brought it all down to earth – industries dying and the growing realisation that we’re just a little island at the edge of Europe. Three day weeks, power cuts, rubbish on the streets, the dead unburied, having to go to the IMF to borrow money…

You don’t need to guess, it was the 1970’s.

Maybe not coincidentally was also when equality was at it’s best

You’ve a different memory of equality in the 70s than me.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be……….

Some things were better, but in the main it’s mainly better now.

The worst thing about now, compared to say the 70’s , when I started work, is the rampant consumerism that exists now.

I hardly use a mobile these days,which seems to have released me from the need to pay some company loadsa money each month.
Seems we are paying a very high price for the instant must have now society.

remember when if you wanted to know what times the trains were you had to hunt through the random drawer for the timetable and if you wanted to catch a train to somewhere far away you had to go down to the station and find out the train times for your connections in the future.

remember when if when watching a TV programme you knew that guy from another film you had to rely upon you or your family remembering where it was you knew them from. Sometimes it would take days or you might never find out.

remember when if the lyrics in a song were a bit indistinct you had to just make it up and you might be singing the wrong lyrics for the rest of your life!

Most of what’s being described in the “better in the past” category, is just reminiscence based on the fact you’ve grown up/grown older, and you no longer have that abandon of no responsibility; every generation has this I’d say. Much like the “Christmas was better when I was a kid”.

Progression, for the most part, is great.

remember when if the lyrics in a song were a bit indistinct you had to just make it up and you might be singing the wrong lyrics for the rest of your life!

Haha, remember standing in the coolest record shop in town trying to sing said lyrics to a bunch of bored and sniggering staff 😆

We’ll find out soon when we get our country back

I was just a little bit sick in my mouth when I read that. Awful. 😡

Fact of the matter is, the past might have been shit (by modern standards) but the future’s not what it used to be, either.

E-mail has ruined the world as far as I am concerned.

When I started my career, during the course of any project, the lines of communication were crystal clear.
If something was important, you would write a letter.
Most of the time, this was a considered act which limited itself to the salient facts that needed to be recorded.
When the recipient received the letter, they would have a whole day in which to write a considered response before posting it back.
It gave everyone time to think about what they were trying to say and ,in the main, it worked.
At the end of the project, you had a file with a bunch of letters in it which a third party, with limited knowledge or context, could pick it up and read and get a reasonably accurate picture of what the job had been about and what the issues were.

Then we got email……. and it all went to shit.

Every insignificant detail of every day is recorded in writing and copied in to every man and his dog.
Trying to pick out the salient points in this blizzard of shit becomes a task of Herculean proportions.

Progress?

Not in my book. In this particular instance, the past was better.

You can’t even post an email.

You can’t even post an email

Why would you want to?

Most of the time you’d just be shoving shit through someones letterbox.

You’d be just as well setting fire to it whilst you’re at it.

Most of the time you’d just be shoving shit through someones letterbox.

You’re obsessed.

Remember when you could fix your own car?! Change the HT leads, clean the plugs, regap (or whatever it was) the carb. My old man taught me all that stuff, now it just has to go in the repair place and empty my wallet. (Well, actually it doesn’t go wrong 😆 )

And let’s face it, most back doors don’t even have a **** letterbox 🙁

You’re obsessed.

Nah*
It’s proper context innit. As previously stated – emails are shit. Drac suggested I should post them. QED. 😉

I am not afraid of my house.

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* OK, A bit. I will continue to shoehorn this analogy, in appropriate context, into as many posts as I can, for as long as it amuses me to do so.

remember when if you wanted a reasoned and well meaning debate with strangers you had to go down the pub!

remember when if you wanted a reasoned and well meaning debate with strangers you had to go down the pub!

…ah, yeah. Debates that actually had an end… (usually when an attractive female walked past 😆 )

Remember when you could fix your own car?!

I am not sure it’s any harder if you have your own dongle tbh.

I remember, having read the Anarchists Cookbook, “war dialling” of an evening from the comfort of a piss drenched public phone box just do I had a list of “interesting” phone numbers to call back home on the dial-up. All I got was some Abbey National server, pah.

Shit like that got you funny looks back then, now you would be up for extradition.

I can relate to the instant communication thing though. Doesn’t bother me, I reply when I get round to it, life’s too short.

I am not sure it’s any harder if you have your own dongle tbh.

Really? took diags from 3 garages and a replacement “ignition rail” when my Saab died.
Don’t remember my Triumph Acclaim having an ignition rail!

I am not sure it’s any harder if you have your own dongle tbh.

Obviously, a man who has never had to replace a headlight bulb on a Renault Scenic.

I don’t recommend it.

It’s like trying to forcibly insert an inappropriate substance into an opening ill suited to receive it………..and then setting fire to it.

Nostalgia – it ain’t what it used to be.

Most of the things that posters are claiming were some kind of pinnacle of human civilisation are still available. You can write letters, you could leave your phone at home, or do without it. Pubs – still lots of them, not as many, but that could be fixed by visiting them more.

We could get back a slower pace of life, we could go back to a more traditional family life – with 1 working parent and 1 stay at home parent, we could even have quieter roads – we just need build a million new houses in new towns and suburbs, not a million flats crammed into brownfield sites.

Most of the things that posters are claiming were some kind of pinnacle of human civilisation are still available. You can write letters, you could leave your phone at home, or do without it. Pubs – still lots of them, not as many, but that could be fixed by visiting them more.

Which only helps if everyone else does it too …….. or else they all Snapchat each other behind your back, mocking you for being an anachronistic dinosaur.

I still write letters to people and get amazed, unbelieving responses when asked why and pointing out to them that the Contract actually requires me to.

Yes you have a point but even for women it was a time of hope

Less so for LGBTG and ethnic minorities.

It’s a difficult one to call. On the one hand there was an expectation that working hard at school and passing your exams would lead to a career which in turn would allow you to purchase your own house. University education fees were non existant and student grants were available. On the flip side travel and communications are much more affordable today and the instant gratification of the Internet means less waiting. Equality is getting better but still has a way to go.

I miss hedge porn though.

The past was so shit that we had to wait for the Internet to tell us exactly how shitty it was. How shit is that?

are prawn cocktail crisps still available?

Nope. Happiness peaked in the 1970s.

No, no and thrice no. All I remember from the 70s was flared jeans, strikes, Fatcha stealing my school milk and sideburns. Mind you, the 70s were a fantastic decade for music.

The 80s was where it was at. Loading a game from a cassette, hedgepron, Space Lego, Raleigh Grifters, the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation, repetitive electronic beats, Reeboks and stinky finger in the park.

Nowadays, we have all these amazing things, which will enable me to have access to the sum total of human knowledge whilst out and about, but I’m not able to live on the Moon yet.

are prawn cocktail crisps still available?

Yes.

A canny bag o’ Tudor – Gammon flavour…….not so much.

Cars were definately worser in the past. No power steering. The radio was a fiddly sort of manual tuning affair where the ‘memory’ was a slider that when you pressed a manual switch the slider slid across to the station. No rear seatbelts and you’re uncle used to bundle you all in the back of his Volvo estate without so much as hand hold.

SMOKING! was everywhere, on buses, in cinemas (please sit to the left), in restaurants, in hospitals even.

access to the sum total of human knowledge

Ah, our supreme gift to the Millennials. Let’s call it a ‘work in progress’ rather than the ‘key to the drinks cabinet’.

The Centennials though? They are going to be smart. So smart. They’ll have the best knowledge. Beautiful knowledge. And I think we all know that.

Don’t remember my Triumph Acclaim having an ignition rail!

No, but did it get to 150k miles without a big end rebuild?

A lot of things are easier than they used to be. Crankshaft position sensor failed? Code tells you sensor has failed, buy new sensor, fit. You don’t have to know the diagnostic signs yourself. Although to be fair it helps.

Perhaps because I understand computers it helps. I’d have no idea how to approach a carb.

I did say new cars don’t go wrong 😉

I’m massively enjoying the return of living in fear of potential nuclear armageddon. The 80’s were great for that….

Lets be honest… Scary people? …. they’re amateurs these days. its all very well being all beardy, shouty, beheady and explodey, but it is absolutely rubbish in comparison to the threat of every last one of us being wiped from the face of the earth in a huge mushroom cloud. And I for one am glad to see the our fate back in the hands of two dangerously unstable maniacs in possession of mahoosive nuclear arsenals

true binners, the IRA used to just randomly blow up parts of mainland UK all the time it seemed.

edit: christ it was a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_Northern_Ireland_Troubles_and_peace_process

beardy, shouty, beheady and explodey,

the unselected members of Snow Whites dwarf gang

And I for one am glad to see the our fate back in the hands of two dangerously unstable maniacs in possession of mahoosive nuclear arsenals

Living near barracks/London as a kid, my mum used to say, at least we’d go in the first strike & not have to worry about the nuclear winter.

On a personal level, I still think I’d prefer that to having my legs blown off in a pub. Bit shit for the rest of humanity though.

Endless corn fields as far as the eye can see, creeks and bayou’s meandering like silver snakes along a biscuit coloured landscape. Beaches whiter than a prom girls teeth, sea the colour of filtered jade.

You clearly didn’t grow up in Mablethorpe.

You’ve a different memory of equality in the 70s than me.

Not relying on memory would be better

null

As you can see the top 10% has continued to rise since 70’s and bottom 10% has continued to fall.

That is only part of it though. Lots of reasons why people would have been happier. Post sexual revolution, starting to get the hang of race and gender, technology in the background rather than the reason for living.

Plus men could get away with wearing outlandish clothing.

Plus men could get away with wearing outlandish clothing.

Don’t forget all the groping and molesting! The 70s were great, men could get away with anything.