I havenāt forgotten about any of that stuff. Strikes and shortages had a lot of their genesis in the oil crisis, inflation resulting from that and wages not keeping in step.
Also, given the way that our present government seems not to want to do a Child Abuse Inquiry, what makes you so certain that establishment paedophilia isnāt going on now? There are a lot of senior British establishment, including royalty, that visited Jeffrey Epsteinās private island.
As someone that lived three years in a peaceful Northern Ireland, Iām pleased that The Troubles are done with. I lived in the 1980s when the IRA were bombing the mainland. I donāt look back on that period and think it was utter shit because of the IRA. Apart from those affected, who does?
I know a listed a bunch of positives, but they were positive values. Listing a load of negative events doesnāt really answer the question of how we let those values slip away.
You. Me. Ying and Yang on the subject Pap. Between the two of us we could probably come up with a a good book on the conflicted (schizophrenic?) nature of British society in the '70ās.
To be fair I was only a nipper so it would be interesting to get the thoughts of some of the sites elder statesmen (I use the term loosely)
Having been born in January 1960, and therefore qualifying as a proper old git, the 1970s coincided with my teenage years. My recollection is that the prevailing mood and atmosphere got gloomier as the decade went on; starting with a distinctly optimistic post-1960s vibe and ending in a far less sunny place. But the whole country wasnāt in some state of upheaval or turmoil throughout the decade, or even at the end of it. In terms of economic conditions, the pattern was pretty much the same. The post-war Keynesian consensus started to break up during the decade, with the new (well, not all that new at all really) neoliberal model taking over after 1979.
On which subject, I think itās worth noting that the Conservatives were elected in 1979 on the back of a campaign which prominently featured their famous āLabour Isnāt Workingā posters. Thatcher came to office in May of that year, inheriting an unemployment figure of about 1.4 milllion - considered, at the time, to be intolerably high (as the Tory election campaign made clear). We soon found out just how unacceptable that 1.4 milllion really was, as unemployment rocketed over the next few years. I canāt recall just how high it was at its peak (and the government changed the way it was measured several times, each time making the total look lower), but it was certainly some way north of 5 million. Iām by no means certain that unemployment has ever fallen below the level that Thatcher inherited in all the intervening years; if it has done, itās only done so briefly.
As far as Iām concerned, the 1970s are unfairly maligned, particularly by those who like to believe that a great new dawn arrived with Thatcher in 1979. It didnāt). It seems that all the good parts of some decades get remembered (this certainly applies to the 1950s and 1960s), while other decades are remembered for their bad parts. There was a great deal that was good about the 1970s, and it seems to have been all too easily forgotten.
Good points @fowllyd . As a nipper I had good memories of the 70ās, well, I remember the late 70ās quite well and some very good times.
I think most of us remember the bad things about the period because thatās what tends to get peddled in the media.
It was the decade that taste / fashion forgot though. Nylon, flares, tank topsā¦etc I do remember the folks had some terrible wallpaper in our living room. Worryingly, I saw something very similar being touted as the new look in the Metro the other day - without any sense of ironyā¦
Fashion is always cyclical - though thankfully Nylon in its 60s/70s form has died the death. Flares had been fashionable pre-1970s and have been since, but thereās been nothing as extravagant in many areas since that time. I remember wearing a jacket with lapels so wide they pretty much came right out to the shoulder; in the middle of the decade we had platform shoes and high-waisted trousers with 28" bottoms (larger than my waist would have been at the time). Platform shoes have made a comeback since then, not so sure about the other two!
Home furnishings were indeed pretty horrific. As a good reference point, watch Mike Leighās brilliant Abigailās Party and study the styles on display in that one set:
One of the four bedrooms in my parentsā house in Bishopstoke (where theyāve lived since August 1960) still has wallpaper from the 1970s. A lot of wallpaper in those days was vinyl-faced, so it would probably outlast the house if not removed.
Oh, and there was some fucking superb disco music around, along with plenty of dross. The worst thing the 1970s gave the world, in musical terms, was prog rock.
Having distinctly short legs, the 70s fashion of flares and Oxford bags was a bit of a nightmare for me, insomuch as my trousers were almost as wide as they were long. I tried to alleviate this problem by buying the tallest platform shoes that I could find, and one Saturday on the way to the Dell I noticed a really tall pair in a shoe-shop window in Southampton high-street. So, anyway, I popped in and pointed them out to the female shop assistant, who after giving me a sideways look went and fetched a box of said shoes. I tried them on, walked up and down the shop a few times, and, okay, they werenāt exactly the most comfortable shoes Iād ever worn but they did make me about six inches taller, so I was pretty happy ā¦ until the assistant said: āyou do realise these are womenās shoes, do you?ā
I have to say, personally I would feel uncomfortable pocketing it. Itās inside a store so Iād have to pass it up to the person behind the till. Not many people really need that Ā£20 but it could be that the person that dropped it really did. My conscience wouldnāt let me pocket it.
There is something called theft by finding. I kid you not. A while back I was overseeing the clearing of an office (it happened to be a CPS office). I was putting stuff in a skip and a guy came and asked me if you could help himself to anything he found of use. I said yes as it cleared more room for more rubbish. Half an hour later the police knock at the door with this guy. They said they had found him talking stuff from the skip. Thats fine I said, I gave him the ok. You cant do that said the copper. Once the stuff goes in the skip it is no longer your property. He threatened the guy with ātheft by findingā but eventually common sense prevailed and he left the guy go! (next morning, needless to say, turned up to find the whole skip had been emptied!)
It would appear that there will be a managerās vacancy at Barcelona at the end of the season. How funny would it be if Ronnie didnt get it and has to stay at Everton?
