Things that were normal but wouldn’t fly these days – smoking, topless women and being a kid.
1. People smoking on television, and not just in the Rovers Return. Whenever you see a chat show from the 60sor 70s, there’s always a trail of smoke in the corner of the shot that’s coming from one of the participants. Smoking in other people’s homes without even asking. Smoking on planes in the back rows was normal well into the 90s. Looking back, it’s insane how inescapable it was. I can remember seeing tiny ashtrays fixed to the wall in public loos, so you didn’t have to stop smoking even when you were having a wee.
2. At the same time as it was perfectly okay to have topless women in newspapers, it was not okay to breastfeed in public. I remember topless darts being shown on some Birmingham cable TV channel like it was normal.
3. It’s much harder to be a kid now, and it’s more work for parents. Kids used to just take themselves off with their mates. I think that is much better for them. Now parents are relied on to arrange activities for them at the weekends and evenings. It’s so much work for parents. No wonder so many working parents are so stressed and so many kids get bored and argumentative at home when their parents don’t have time, or money, to schedule “activities”.
Marketing works!
Ocean Plumbing.
Concepts to help you understand the world
Mimetic Desire: Craving is contagious; watching other people want a thing makes us want it too. It’s why ads are so effective. But it puts us all into an unnecessary competition as we fool ourselves into chasing what others are chasing simply because they are chasing it.
Long-lost wallet
A reader writes: “While helping a friend pick up rubbish along Tamaki Drive we found a wallet belonging to Nicola Lynley Creighton lost some 17 years ago. All the cards are still in there (plus a few worms) and your driver’s license. If Nicola wants her wallet back, please contact Sideswipe.”
