Creeping destruction of England.

[Eric Mc]

JDRoest said:

eldar said:

in 1980 (32 years ago, near enough), 5,953 people were killed on UK roads. 30 years later it was 1,857. 4,000 fewer death a year are probably positive.

And how much of that was down to car design? Compare a Ford Cortina with anything made in the last 10 years and tell me which one is safer.

And why do you think that improved safety measures have been incorporated into car design?

[rhinochopig]

Eric Mc said:

JDRoest said:

eldar said:

in 1980 (32 years ago, near enough), 5,953 people were killed on UK roads. 30 years later it was 1,857. 4,000 fewer death a year are probably positive.

And how much of that was down to car design? Compare a Ford Cortina with anything made in the last 10 years and tell me which one is safer.

And why do you think that improved safety measures have been incorporated into car design?

Is it driven by the pink pound?

[Eric Mc]

rhinochopig said:

Is it driven by the pink pound?

Consumer concern stoked by media exposure leads to political pressure leads to government action leads to tighter regulation leads to manufacturers responding leads to improved safety.

How democracy works, in fact.

[Kermit power]

I was feeling somewhat down this morning. Christmas is over and I've got work to do... It's pissing it down with rain, still... The time when I have to sell my V8 is looming ever closer...

Then I read the OP's thread, and thought "fk me, at least I don't have that outlook on life!"

Thanks, OP. You've put things nicely in perspective for me and made me realise that I've actually got a pretty good life! Long may it remain untainted by the paranoia that is clearly afflicting you, and best wishes for a quick recovery.

[oyster]

moparmick said:

Difference 30 yrs has made to where i personally live.
Off the top of my head.

1) Traffic calming ( None 30 yrs ago )
2) Roads in very poor condition ( See above, for where the money as gone.
3) Speed cameras ( Only hand held 30 yrs ago. )
4) Too much micromanagement, through petty laws.
5) Too many cctv cameras.
6) Too many traffic wardens.
7) Too little, free on street parking.
8) Too many houses being built in the wrong places ( peoples gardens etc )
9) Too many people.
10) Too many obese children.
Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.
Mick

Thirty years ago only 31% of households have more than one car. Now that figure is 53%. So if your household has more than one car, YOU are part of some of the problems you list above.

But of course none of it is your fault is it? It's them foreigners isn't it?

[vonuber]

I'll tell you what, my dad is glad they didn't have all this elf n saftee bks back in the 70's when he worked in heavy industry.
If they did then he would never have had the chance for the nhs to replace his crushed vertebrae which was slowly paralysing him.

[rohrl]

vonuber said:

I'll tell you what, my dad is glad they didn't have all this elf n saftee bks back in the 70's when he worked in heavy industry.
If they did then he would never have had the chance for the nhs to replace his crushed vertebrae which was slowly paralysing him.

D'you know what gets on my wick? Those whingers going on about how a bit of asbestos has given them the sniffles. It's PC gone mad.

[Kermit power]

vonuber said:

I'll tell you what, my dad is glad they didn't have all this elf n saftee bks back in the 70's when he worked in heavy industry.
If they did then he would never have had the chance for the nhs to replace his crushed vertebrae which was slowly paralysing him.

Good point! If they'd had it back in the mid to late 50s, then my dad would've been forced to buy an MP3 player to have sounds when he was out and about, rather than having a built in sound track from the tinnitus he picked up during a factory apprenticeship with no proper hearing protection.

I must remind him of just how lucky he is!!!

[eccles]

moparmick said:

Difference 30 yrs has made to where i personally live.
Off the top of my head.

1) Traffic calming ( None 30 yrs ago )
2) Roads in very poor condition ( See above, for where the money as gone.
3) Speed cameras ( Only hand held 30 yrs ago. )
4) Too much micromanagement, through petty laws.
5) Too many cctv cameras.
6) Too many traffic wardens.
7) Too little, free on street parking.
8) Too many houses being built in the wrong places ( peoples gardens etc )
9) Too many people.
10) Too many obese children.
Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.
Mick

I'm really trying to fathom how too many obese children affect your day to day life?

30 years age we didn't have the internet, cars rusted away in 5 years and Dada army was on telly......Oh, hang on...

[TheSnitch]

I love this thread. That is all.

[Kermit power]

eccles said:

I'm really trying to fathom how too many obese children affect your day to day life?

One trod on my foot once. It hurt a bit more than a non-obese child would've done.

[Silver]

I love these apocalyptic 'England going to hell in a handbasket' threads which spring from seemingly nothing. I always imagine Michael Douglas's meltdown in Falling Down.

[JDRoest]

moparmick said:

Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.

I'm with you on this Mick. Spent the last ten years travelling, and started with the attitude that what the UK is the best. But after seeing countless countries you do start to get the feeling that the UK is heavily taxed, there is a lack of quality of life, it's unbelievably expensive, and the English (as opposed to the Welsh and Scots) get some sort of kick out of being miserable and mean spirited. (Try the Lake Districts for the most unpleasant experience anywhere - even the locals admit they are a pretty unfriendly bunch. But then, it does rain all the time.).

I still love my country's incredible history, but today it's a far cry from that. Not that anyone on PH will actually admit it.

And yes, I did leave the UK in the end. I had a choice of living in the US or the UK, or even moving out to Europe, and it was a very easy decision to make. Most of my new family are immigrants to the US at one time or another, and you don't see any of them looking to head back to Europe any time soon either. None of them can even be bothered to visit Europe any more.

I had one trip to the UK this year, and frankly it was a bit embarrassing, unbelievably expensive, and sitting in 3 traffic jams, whilst trying to drive 40 miles summed up everything you need to know about the UK. (It took 3 hours to drive 40 miles). What is amazing is that people put up with that st!

[Kermit power]

moparmick said:

Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.

It's always going to be difficult for people to provide an objective assessment of the same place 30 years apart regardless of where the place is for the simple reason that we're viewing the place through very different eyes.

I can look back to the late Seventies and as an 8yr old, regular power cuts caused by strike action were pretty exciting. If I'd been trying to earn a living to pay a mortgage and raise my kids back then, I reckon I would've viewed it rather differently. Seeing rats running around piles of uncollected rubbish in the streets is something that would still strike me as pretty unpleasant now, on the other hand. All the recycling stuff these days can be a bit of a pain, but I can't remember the last time our bins weren't collected due to strike action.

Of course, there are some things which have definitively improved over the last 30 years, not least of which being the quality of food in pubs/restaurants, and the quality of beer, especially for home consumption. Much of the improvement in food is thanks to the influx of dirty foreigners, of course, so maybe I shouldn't count that?

There is plenty of stuff which is better than 30 years ago, but which is universal - internet, mobile telephony, the demise of the C90 cassette etc... - so that needs to be removed from the equation too, I suppose.

British TV is still the best in the world - although there are a few more decent US series these days - and generally much better than 30 years ago. Yes, there's utter crap like Strictly, I'm a Celebrity and so on, but it's generally better than similar formats other countries come up with, and would've been competing with the likes of Blankety Blank and the Generation Game back then.

I've lived in Spain and the South of France, both of which were very pleasant, and traveled to other countries where I've built up good working relationships with business partners and the like. Once you get to know people, it's amazing just how similar every country is in terms of always believing the grass is greener elsewhere!

Looking at all the countries I've been to, it's easy to think of some I'd prefer to live in when it's pissing it down with rain and I'm sat going nowhere on the M25. On the flipside, when I've just slid in front of a country pub fire with a nice pint of bitter after a chilly winter morning's mountain biking in the Surrey Hills, Exmoor or similar, there simply is nowhere on the planet I'd rather be.

To be honest, I think I'm probably quite easily pleased though, and do a reasonable job most of the time of making the most of what's put in front of me. I've only ever been to two countries for which I've developed an active dislike, namely the US and Saudi Arabia. From the moment I arrive in either, I'm counting the minutes until I can leave!

[DonkeyApple]

Silver said:

I love these apocalyptic 'England going to hell in a handbasket' threads which spring from seemingly nothing. I always imagine Michael Douglas's meltdown in Falling Down.

Or a reaction to being bummed by a Jewish, black Albanian in the Lidl carpark after a dispute over a 'mother & child' parking space. Or possibly outraged at not being bummed.

[TheSnitch]

moparmick said:

Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.
Mick

Well - these things all represent an improvement in my eyes.

Internet
Mobile phones
Not being restricted to 4 TV channels
The News of the World is no more
Multiscreen cinema
Microwave ovens
Espresso machines
DVDs and CDs. Vinyl and video were both st (waits for response on THAT one)

But conversely....
David Icke was still commenting on the footie and not making a tt of himself on the web
I could catch a plane without being strip searched
No-one tried to make me eat tofu.


On balance, I prefer it now. Although the tofu is close to a dealbreaker

[rohrl]

Things which are better now than they were 30 years ago.

Technology. The future has arrived in the shape of smartphones, Sky+HD, iPads, Ipods, Ieverythingelse. Personal computing was in its infancy in 1982.

Medicine. Cancer detection and survival rates are much better now than in 1982. We've sequenced the human genome and new drugs and medical procedures come along all the time.

Food. The choice available in a 2012 supermarket is far greater and more varied than in 1982. It's not all funny foreign muck either.

[Silver]

moparmick said:

Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.

Just a handful off the top of my head:

- people have broader horizons, none of this 'stay in the same st job till you die' rubbish
- it's not OK to be blatantly and offensively homophobic, sexist and racist in public (though I realise that doesn't stop some people)
- interior decor is way nicer
- people have more encouragement to make something of themselves
- education has improved
- better cars
- better food and wine
- better TV, films and radio
- greater variation in employment opportunities
- improved technology

Yes, I realise that there can be flip sides to most of these, but the thought of being a grown-up in the 1970s fills me with horror.

I could have got a mediocre education and learned needlework or something, got married at 18, got pregnant, popped out a few kids because it would be hard for me to get a decent job without being discriminated against, watched my husband (complete with pron-star 'tache drive our st-brown Allegro to work in a dead-end job every day then come home drunk (because it's OK to drink drive), climb over the rubbish bags piled up because of the strikes, step in some white dogst demand to know where his dinner is then snigger racistly at 'Love Thy Neighbour', take a st in our avocado bathroom suite which I will have to clean the next day before falling into bed between our delectable static nylon sheets. And I'd have to listen to Slade on the radio every single day.

In fact, that's exactly what it would be like.

Edited by Silver on Friday 28th December 17:47

[rohrl]

Silver said:

moparmick said:

Please anyone in this thread, tell me what they personally feel is better now than 30yrs ago. I'm sure there are positives.

Just a handful off the top of my head:

- people have broader horizons, none of this 'stay in the same st job till you die' rubbish
- it's not OK to be blatantly and offensively homophobic, sexist and racist in public (though I realise that doesn't stop some people)
- interior decor is way nicer
- people have more encouragement to make something of themselves
- education has improved
- better cars
- better food and wine
- better TV, films and radio
- greater variation in employment opportunities
- improved technology

Yes, I realise that there can be flip sides to most of these, but the thought of being a grown-up in the 1970s fills me with horror.

I could have got a mediocre education and learned needlework or something, got married at 18, got pregnant, popped out a few kids because it would be hard for me to get a decent job without being discriminated against, watched my husband (complete with pron-star 'tache drive our st-brown Allegro to work in a dead-end job every day then come home drunk (because it's OK to drink drive), climb over the rubbish bags piled up because of the strikes, step in some white dogst demand to know where his dinner is then snigger racistly at 'Love Thy Neighbour', take a st in our avocado bathroom suite which I will have to clean the next day before falling into bed between our delectable static nylon sheets. And I'd have to listen to Slade on the radio every single day.

In fact, that's exactly what it would be like.

Pipe down and put the kettle on darlin', there's men talking here.

[Silver]

rohrl said:

Pipe down and put the kettle on darlin', there's men talking here.