Changes During Your Lifetime

Everything’s been homogenised and globalised in our lifetime hasn’t it? That German SUV now made in America, that Boss shirt now stitched in China,…. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

They used to make Citroens and Peugeots in the UK decades ago. We're just being fed endless clickbait outrage propaganda, laser targeted at the boomer generation, on the blasted Faecesbook amongst others, about how everything was better way back when. Well, we in Britain are getting a practical real time reminder of what life was like in the 1970s and earlier by dint of the economic and travel sanctions we've imposed upon ourselves, and let me tell you, I far prefer the practical modern arrangements we had before 31st January 2020.

Things were being "globalised" by the British Empire, amongst others, centuries ago.

I really am heart sick of all this disinformational hogwash, and the seemingly endless capacity for the terminally gullible to consume and regurgitate it.

Stuff changes. Mostly things change for the better. Until, that is, a certain government in a certain country decided to have a certain referendum and run it so badly and allow such illegality and disinformation to swamp us that reason was lost and forces of hatred prevailed, which has triggered the greatest regression, in so many ways, any of us are ever likely to see.

Beer? there is so much more choice and so much more qualiy out there now than in the 80s. McEwans Export and Newky Brown were always absolutley awful beers, products of the rush to keg by the goliath brewers in the 60s. I genuinely couldn't care less if I never saw either of them again.

I know that’s the gospel according to Charles Moore but where’s the evidence for it?

I was thinking more about the range of Real Ales available these days, which certainly can't be produced in the way you describe, BP. I'm not hugely invested in the latest wave of "craft" beers. Lots of small breweries around the country now offer home delivery, so it's easier than ever to get a wide variety of excellent beers for home consumption.

As a teenager when I first started visting pubs, choice in this area was pretty much limited to the unspeakably bad Morland (sorry, WDB, their stuff was mostly undrinkable in my humble), Courage and Ind Coope keg beers. Brakspears were fine. Moving north for University was a revelation, although Nottingham was still plagued with the keg bitter bilge from Home, Shipstones and Kimberley - but it was close enough to Yorkshire to get plenty of proper creamy northern bitters with a proper head (i.e. Theakstons, and, from Lincolnshire, Batemans).

These days it's night and day. It's hard to get a bad hand pulled beer, although I appreciate Young's efforts to pollute London with revolting emetics.

I don’t see any evidence there that it’s caused by unions. Correlated, maybe, but not caused. Just as likely it’s to do with the essential nature of services that used to be in the public sector; housing and water require more care and consumer protection (‘red tape’ if you’re that way inclined) than, say, fashion.

I think there’s a general apathy everywhere tbh, in both the private and public sectors. Covid is a great excuse for any individual or organisation who are failing in their day-to-day obligations and/or can’t be bothered to improve themselves.

And how many civil servants still resolutely refuse to cease WFH and go back to the office?

Airlines, airports and hospitality laid off low-paid staff at the start of 2020 and now wonder why they can’t get people back working for them…

Hardly any business or organisation is currently running at 100% capacity at the moment, and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon 😬

Still WFH here, and I had to cross town from my extreme northerly habitation to the Nissan dealer at the extreme south, at rush hour time yesterday afternoon. I'd forgotten what a hellscape it is. It took me over half an hour to do the 5 mile journey. Sitting in a jam on a congested dual carriageway really brought it home to me how I, the environment and my workplace are benefitting from me working from home. It made me wonder how many of the vehicles around me could have been removed from that congestion, and the pollution saved, by people not being forced into offices by incompetent presentee-obsessed managers.