The World We Live In - Past Or Present?

[agchristie]

A phrase I keep hearing recently goes along the lines of 'it's a crazy world and things aren't what they used to be'.

These are big questions I know but:-

1) Where would we benefit from returning to the 'good old days'?

2) What has not changed for the better?

[Peter Pedant]

o god I dont mind outside loos

it was the benches with buckets and o god the smell ....

[-Talbot-]

Positive ... I don't mind kids playing loud music ... my system can easily outdo them if they want a sound-off

[jno]

that's very interesting, woofgang, I hadn't heard of that. Now replaced by internet shaming, I suppose.

[ummmm]

I disagree with the politeness. I live close to a boys school and they all seem to use my local shop at break times. I have never encountered any rudeness from them or any other adult. They hold the door open, say please and thank you and apologise if they're in your way.

I think you'll find less polite people in town centres but I put that down to people being in a rush....shopping on their lunch breaks etc...

Life might have been slower Mikey but lots of jobs were more local. I live in a shoe making town and there were loads of shoe factories...most closed down now so people are commuting or having to drive to work, we are now time limited.

[Cloverjo]

I was born in the 70s, so listened to 80s music in my teens, but I also love the 60s. Music today sounds like a pile a wet straw to me. Nothing there, not even a beat to get annoyed by.

[mikey4444]

Talbot....my point is that its rude and inconsiderate to play music so loudly,
that it interferes with the lives of people around you. When they are at full tilt,
I can hardly hear my TV. Its not just me....other neighbours have complained as well.

By the way, my hi-fi would readily out perform theirs, but I choose not to let it do so, as I have concerns for my neighbours, unlike them.

[ummmm]

Do you not tell them to turn it down?

[woofgang]

Interesting comments mikey......one thing I do remember is my mother constantly doing housework...and she had several different part time jobs too, not all at once. We couldn’t afford a car so every bit of shopping was brought home partly by bus and partly on foot as we were about a 15 minute walk from the nearest bus stop...and this was London! Going shopping anywhere but locally had to be arranged like a military campaign...again because of the busses. We had an outside loo which would freeze in winter so we kept an oilstove burning in there day and night when it got cold. There were oilstoves in the bedrooms too but the windows still froze over. We had no bathroom or running hot water. The building was condemned in 1964 and on 30th Jan 1965 we moved into a council ground floor maisonette. It was like a palace! still no central heating but hot water off the back boiler heated by the open fire in the living room that was lit with a gas poker!!! no more fooling around with kindling and crumpled newspaper. We had an actual bathroom and indoor toilet and because it was in a block of maisonettes it was much warmer.

We lived a more regimented life. Shop and pub opening hours were tightly limited by law and radio and television broadcasting hours and content were governed by what was “appropriate”....as was quite a lot of behaviour. I remember life in general being a lot less spontaneous...I guess because of the lack of transport and communication.

[mikey4444]

Ummmm...what you say about jobs and travelling is probably true.

When I was kid in the 60's, we lived in a small seaside town in Somerset, called Watchet. There was a Van Huesen that employed all the local women and a paper mill that employed all the local men....both no longer there, the paper mill closing at Xmas, after having been in existence for 250 years.

Not sure where people work now...probably in Bridgewater or Taunton....a car journey away.!

There used to be lots of shops in Watchet.....baker, butchers ( 2 ) paper shop, shoe shop, clothes shops (2)...etc, etc. Now, mostly closed down. People now drive to Minehead to shop at Lidl, Tesco or Morrison.....shops unheard of 50 years ago.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to get into the Tardis and travel back to the 60's, just for a day or so, every now and then. But I am not sure if I would really appreciate going back permanently, despite what I have written today.

[mikey4444]

Ummmm..(09:29).....yes, constantly but all we get is a load of bad language ! The Council have been informed however, as there are other anti-social aspects to this family.....drugs being the most serious. The tenant is on her final warning of eviction.

[ummmm]

Mikey - you'd miss the mod cons too much.

Small things we take for granted nowadays.

One time I was walking down the street and there was an elderly male walking towards me completely naked and completely confused. I got my phone and phoned the police who located him on CCTV and sent an ambulance. All done in 2 mins...

[mikey4444]

Woofy....(09:37)....... I remember my Mum doing all the washing on a Monday, because it took the rest of the week to get it dry !

She had a simple manual washing machine. We had an ancient Ascot gas boiler, that would be condemned now I expect.

Mums worked so hard in those days, with little in the way of labour-saving devices, and yet they seemed to manage. Mum brought myself and my three little brothers up and we always had clean, if not very new clothes to wear. She could do miracles with a pound of mince and some potatoes !

I take my hat off to her.

[mikey4444]

Ummm....yes I have forgotten Mobile phones ....wouldn't be without mine !

And email !

[ummmm]

I rarely touch my phone which my son thinks is criminal and I don't deserve it!! (it's an iphone my boss gave me)

[jno]

I don't have a mobile, but I manage. I do have an iPad but use my desktop most of the time. I certainly wouldn't want to be without the internet (those trips I used to take down to the library to look stuff up). But I do without instagramming, tweeting, FBing, even text messaging. Sometimes I think they would be nice (as I think a Boxster would be nice), but not enough to make me want to do anything about it.

[mikey4444]

Does anyone know where Doctor Who garages his Tardis ?

[Cloverjo]

I used to have noisy neighbours. They didn't give a stuff. If I asked them them to turn it down, they'd say it's only for the kids to have some fun, and turn it on full blast at 5 am once their baby woke up. Honestly, it's an absolute nightmare.

[jno]

mikey, it's in Earls Court and is on street view - click on the arrows for a look inside

http://cinsidemedia.com/360/DrWho/Tardis.html

[Cloverjo]

Mikey, I live fairly near Watchet. I didn't know about the paper mill. There's nothing there now except for a pub, but I haven't been there for years. I must go when I get a chance. It's a very nice area.

[vulcan42]

Isn't this a matter of perception? We look back and compare what we have now to what was available in the fifties, sixties and seventies but in those days we compared our life with a previous generation. I remember my mother thinking how wonderful it was that she could phone the grocer in the morning and have her groceries delivered that evening, and this was the late fifties.
I think for the most part people in those days were reasonably content, and don't forget in forty, fifty years time people will compare their life with now and wonder how we managed with such primitive technology,( "you actually drove a car"?) A young friend of mine, when she first saw my camera a few years ago said how strange it didn't have a rear window to look through like hers, yet only a few years previously this camera was the latest in technological achievement. We can of course only compare with the past, if we could compare with the future we might not be quite so satisfied. Progress is an odd thing, usually it's an improvement but sometimes it's just exchanging one nuisance for another in a different form.