It’s a time of constant change. Quite probably it always has been. It is only with a lifetime of perspective that you can always appreciate the degree of upheaval. Or is it just a failure to adapt ?
So is the pace of change any more dramatic in my 70 decades? Certainly it feels that way in that there seem to be fewer unchangeable anchor points like family, community, religion and trust in institutions.
TV was perhaps the first big change, starting with only two channels in black and white, for just a few hours a day; it has now morphed into hundreds of channels every hour of the day and night. Although 70 years on it seems likely to go the same way as the ‘wireless’ for the next generation.
For the generation before me there were things beyond my imagination :- the aftermath of World war 1; the depression and unemployment years of the 1930’s and then another World War. Not to mention the technological advancement of electricity and the proliferation of motor vehicles. These were big changes that my mother and father had to come to terms with in their lives, but they seldom looked back and talked about them.
The moon landing was the most memorable event of those early TV days, although that one off adventure had little impact on my day to day life.
More mundane things had lasting effect in the UK, when we changed to metric measures. Or sort of changed — we still have “miles” and temperatures seem better in Fahrenheit . £sd went out of the window and in came new coins that heralded a jump in inflation. In my teens I used to serve a pint of beer in a pub for one and six. Now it costs me over a fiver ! Next we are about to do without change altogether and just use plastic.
There are many more changes I could grumble about, but without question, the most significant one is the advent of the internet. Discombobulating certainly, but an opportunity for great adventure too. It now pervades just about everything, for good and ill.
Like the moon landing, who knows where it will lead ?
GrumbleSmiles 
Off not of
70 decades
John if you ever want a proof reader I am here
Sincerely hope all is well
M
boo!
all that change in my pocket cents and sentiments , all in a memory bank? The web internet, and all those email messages asking me to respond, and consider a lot of new products and services.
I just play with my pieces in my pocket and get no where, at my delicate age of 80 years. My memories take me back to the ‘nettie” the newsprint on the nail, and then the removal of the bucket, and committing all that waste to the midden and the sewage tip outside the building.
Its all confusing, I have to learn the relationship between the mobile phone and the computer, and the connecting electronic web internet providers. I am totally confused, give me a person, a smile and a handshake, and words of confidence, I am unsure of the electronic utterances and in some cases total ‘gobbledegook’ and keystrokes where my fingers are not delicate enough to give a precise response.
Modern life advancement, the only thing advancing in my lifestyle is the age I become, that is the one definite thing I understand??
question where you watching ITV evening news last night at 1900. Discussion with the recent english ladies football team goalie, Intriguing 5 minutes, the question arose ”equal pay for men and women playing football? I cannot see the point, does this mean mixed team members of a football team, or a league of joint men and womans football teams, or a unisex league of football.
Answers on a postcard please.
What in this world is RISHI DISHI doing, suggesting that the fast trains north of London to the North West and the North East. Resulting in Just a fast train superspeed to Birmingham. I t just makes one wonder who are the majority of the population in the UK, are we seeing a colour bias in the London voting constituencies, and the Midlands.
Never mind my prejudices the fast/super train was set in stone by the past masters of the UK Political scene in Westminster, by RISHI.s forefathers, never mind the time he spent churning over the pennies spent in his time as a politician in the treasury and finally as chancellor of the Exchequer.
The whole HS2 high speed railway project is virtually in the dust, and then we have the politicians of the day, and now today, awaiting the 2024 general election received any inspiration on how to travel within the UK. Do we all now take to small boats and travel around the UK paddling our own canoes. Not forgetting Scotland and the Clyde/Forth canal, so the Scottish politicians can get the Holyrood House to speak freely in the Scottish Parliament, or to cross, transit the Caledonian Canal, so they can declare independence for The Shetland Isles and the UK Oil and Gas fields, never mind the coal fields?? It is all ‘nutty slag’’. What a monster???
The poor old Welsh parliament, maybe they just drift and dream of how to cross the Irish sea, and celebrate a foreign tongue with those Irish Neighbours who may speak Gallic while trying to understand the songs and language of love attributed to the Welsh people, {Land of My Fathers].
So now sexism, man/woman/gender, where is RISHIS Dishi going, who are we voting for??? Gone are the red, blue, yellow, green definitions of colour, as we contemplate brown/black/white/ yellow colours. You are probably accusing me of fantasy and inaccuracies?? Maybe! but I have a vote and I wish those politicians of all political colours to lead me into a reasoned thoughtful discussion of what my taxes, and their political thinking, may bring, and, then how their actual spending is achieved to the benefit of all the population of the UK, not just in London and Birmingham., and thrashing around the English Channel in a boat as non-UK Citizen voter!
I just wonder? Is It all a story of ‘WHITE ELEPHANTS’, or just another fantasy from the far east like ‘Ali BARBAH and the 40 Thieves ??’
did you watch last nights edition of ”’casualty” broadcast at around 2100 on bbc1 Tv? [16/9/23] .The story line touched on the swiss clinics procedure of euthanasia, and then the storyline picked up some after effects on the Family portrayed in the drama. Here I was challenged to think hard of my future, but one thing in the drama, that slightly confused me as to its relevance was the relationship of the deceased first marriage, and his first wife, present at the death bed, and the relationship of the son from the second marriage not at the deathbed but of afro/Indian origins, and his report of the first wife to the british authorities police forces of an organised/attempted suicide , of his father without his permission! The story I assumme carries on later with the niceties of international law, when as I see the act being committed not under british law, but swiss law, and its legal system.
The Drama has opened many a trapdoor for the future??? It is for us all to guess the future????
just a litter ”Witter”, Question where has the privacy gone? when using your /ones mobile phone? The modern media giants ask us as we purchase our mobile telephones from the various retailers outlets , they ask us politely what do we want?? What kind of service?
My response was a quick, simple device, at minimum cost to be able to phone a friend/relative etc, and to close the phone down after the call, until next time I use it.
I maybe would like a web/internet connection, to my computer, so I can remotely access my personal ‘EMAILS’. Wonderful you may say!!! Alleluia, I would answer if this were true>
I find the mobile phone/internet web? bombard me with information from various view points, asking me/requesting me to respond. At 80 years of age I just wish to know with who/whom I am having a conversation with, on the mobile phone or the web and I expected that would be easy, and not be invaded by persons unknown to me, or services unknown to me selling their wares, like ‘harlots’??? I am unhappy with the way modern communications have gone!! However I realises that if I wish to communicate, either in an emergency, or informally with my contacts I have to put up with these ‘ADD ONS’!! that the mobile phone and internet providers sell as there normal service? Gone is that talking one to one on a private line? I am totally confused and bitterly disappointed.