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Big changes in your lifetime?

The single, biggest change in my lifetime has been quality of life. Life was so much better during my youth.

Yet, during those halcyon years, we also suffered unspeakable hardships kids today could not fathom. Snow was deeper, destinations were uphill — both ways!, we had to look up stuff in books at libraries, and damned if you could buy fruit any fancier than a banana.

So, yes, the biggest change in my lifetime is that everything is worse today and yet they were even worse before. Even the Great Oracle at Delphi cannot resolve this conundrum.

Joe
 
I have a completely different opinion.
The previous generation to mine saw two world wars which if they survived they ended working in factories or down pits with little regard to health and safety.
They died from simple injuries because antibiotics didn’t exist and there was no NHS.
The vast majority of men were dead within 5 years of retiring at 65, if they reached it.
Rickets, Polio, diphtheria and TB were rife.

Since then opportunity, life expectancy, health and wealth have never been better.

This is the golden age.
 
And thanks to anti-vaxxers, polio, diphtheria and TB can be rife again.

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Joe
 
Joe P said:
we also suffered unspeakable hardships kids today could not fathom. Snow was deeper, destinations were uphill — both ways!, we had to look up stuff in books at libraries, and damned if you could buy fruit any fancier than a banana.
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You were lucky. There were 16 of us living in a shoe box in t’middle o’t’road and all we had for tea were an andful of grit.
But, we were appy.
 
Nitomors. The fumes alone used to take a layer of skin off your face at 5 feet, now it couldn't take the skin off a rice pudding when directly applied and left to stew for half a day. Bloody useless.
 
Not having to 'make beds'. I recall my parents buying us what were known as continental quilts, quite radical in the early 70's. Now known as duvets, and now with fitted sheets, it's a doddle (unless you are a nurse?).
 
I seem to remember in my youth the UK was a stable, functioning, parliamentary democracy. My what changes we’ve seen.
 
eternumviti said:
Nitomors. The fumes alone used to take a layer of skin off your face at 5 feet, now it couldn't take the skin off a rice pudding when directly applied and left to stew for half a day. Bloody useless.
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My dad made me strip the paint off the bricks on our outside loo with Nitromors. I blame him for my subsequent drug addiction.
 
I bet schools today do not have shelves of potassium metal in oil, sodium in oil, phosphorus, I kid you not, in oil which were in glass jars without any type of locking mechanism all stored at schoolchild hand height, neither will they have an open masak alloy furnace that the school idiot was persuaded to drop magnesium wire into, luckily he wasn’t persuaded to do anything with the phosphorus.
 
Is new Nitromors no good then? I bought some a few weeks ago as I’ve a couple of old door latches and bakelite door handles in my house that would look far better stripped back to the original finish. No idea when I’ll get round to doing it though. I just grabbed some as the local Homebase or whatever its called was going bust again and pretty much giving everything away!
 
I used some from Homebase a few weeks ago on an old gate. Worked perfectly well and as expected.
 
Tony L said:
Is new Nitromors no good then? I bought some a few weeks ago as I’ve a couple of old door latches and bakelite door handles in my house that would look far better stripped back to the original finish. No idea when I’ll get round to doing it though. I just grabbed some as the local Homebase or whatever its called was going bust again and pretty much giving everything away!
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It's fine and will work, but it's not as good in terms of actually stripping paint as it used to be. Takes more applications to remove a lot of layers whereas the original stuff was much more effective in smaller doses. To be fair though the current stuff is probably a lot safer and less environmentally hostile than the original formulation and if you've not used the original stuff you'd not be any the wiser anyway.
 
Stella Artois went from reassuringly expensive 5.2% Belgian brewed, premium export lager, a bit hard to find, to always on special offer 4.8%, brewed in Wales slosh, found in every corner shop.
 
Rob998 said:
Stella Artois went from reassuringly expensive 5.2% Belgian brewed, premium export lager, a bit hard to find, to always on special offer 4.8%, brewed in Wales slosh, found in every corner shop.
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We used to drink that in the Hacienda from the can. It’s plastic pots in most clubs now, well the good ones anyway.
 
Bob McC said:
I have a completely different opinion.
The previous generation to mine saw two world wars which if they survived they ended working in factories or down pits with little regard to health and safety.
They died from simple injuries because antibiotics didn’t exist and there was no NHS.
The vast majority of men were dead within 5 years of retiring at 65, if they reached it.
Rickets, Polio, diphtheria and TB were rife.

Since then opportunity, life expectancy, health and wealth have never been better.

This is the golden age.
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there is a lot more to meaningful existence than hobbling on beyond the age of 65. you are essentially making a consumerist argument. "more" is not a philosophy of life.
 
As the thread begun with the space age. When I was a kid in the 1960's the future would be space rockets and electric cars. What did we get? 140 letters (tweeter or what ever it's called) and pics of kittens. Thankfully Mr Musk has set the future back to it's right course!!!

That's two big changes.
 
Jamie said:
Not having to 'make beds'. I recall my parents buying us what were known as continental quilts, quite radical in the early 70's. Now known as duvets, and now with fitted sheets, it's a doddle (unless you are a nurse?).
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"...it's a doddle (unless you are a nurse?)"

I am a nurse (R.N. ret.) - are you able to elucidate on your remark?
 
Big Tabs said:
"...it's a doddle (unless you are a nurse?)"

I am a nurse (R.N. ret.) - are you able to elucidate on your remark?
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Not meant as a derogatory comment, just that in hospitals they don't have duvets (at least not when I was last in), so still have to do it the old fashioned way with sheets and blankets. Sorry if I caused any (unintentional) offence!
 
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