Bugger, I meant to continue the last thread but I got waylaid by fatigue and didn’t finish it, so I thought weel, save it or publish and keep a record going from every day. I decided my every day policy ought to at least survive the first week.

What I was talking about on the nostalgia front will come back to me. It was basically that it’s easy to think that the past was great and the here and now shite and that clearly isn’t true but there were from my eyes certain things that were different in the 70s that make me think the 80s had a serious effect on things that lasted in some ways longer than we might previously have thought. I used to go to school on the bus when I was about 6, on my own -we’re talking 1977-8 here. This is Central London, I travelled on the 2B from baker St. to Victoria, not a vast journey but there wasn’t a question of me not doing it for any reason, nor was my Mother especially laissez-faire it was just normal. Now I’m not saying you couldn’t do that nowadays because the journey would be entirely in the public view on busy streets, no side roads, alleys etc. but you wouldn’t send your kids to school like that in London at 12 let alone at 6. Perceptually we believe the danger is far greater whether indeed it is or isn’t. there were certainly peadophiles around in the 70s, I ran into one in the toilets of Burger King when I was about 10 and that was whilst my grandmother was outside in the restaurant. Suffice to say he was just taking an inordinately long time in the urinal and when I came out of the cubicle said “I like boys” and I shot off like a jack rabbit. We went to the Plod and they toured us around in the squad car (a Morris Ital, how and why do I remember that?!) but there was no mass hysteria and the next day things went back to normal. So, the dangers were there but children seemed to have more freedom and more real life experience. Perhaps this is why when kids now hit 14/15/16 they go wild becuase they haven’t had a gradual learning process of life filtration. Again, we had our share of scrapes, under-age drinking that sort of thing but there seemed to be bounds you tended not to cross. Your parents on the whole were still regarded as krypto-fascists but adults in general were to be avoided or just taken the piss out of. I see the extent some kids go to today and I think that’s a bit heavy, pick the wrong adult and you’re going to get your teeth smashed in.

I’m going to post this one now and continue a new thread, again the vanity of keeping a 100% daily record.