Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Ob,
I must tell you I even have friends in the far south. Some are from as far south as Nottingham.
They tell me there is something further down the M1, but all they can tell me is to show me Photos of some mythological place where the afflicted are sent to mindlessly walk around mazes of concrete and steel. A place so likely to upset a balanced mind even the farm animals are of concrete construction (it is rumoured these are the cows McD uses for its burgers). They tell me it is called Milton Keynes, but I doubt it really exists.
It is for this reason that we have not ventured further into these realms. Beware; Here Be Dragons.

Alan,

Reading your bit about "where the afflicted are sent to mindlessly walk around mazes of concrete and steel. A place so likely to upset a balanced mind" I thought you were talking about the Houses Of Parliament until I read further.
And the line, There be dragons.....Have you see the female labor MPs.

It could equally be Doncaster. Chav central

We have dragons in Wales...........and sheep...............

Alan,

Milton Keynes was built to ease travellers gently into what they could expect as they journeyed north and reduce the shock!

It isn't all concrete and steel down here - look at this picture of my garden.

Al come down to Hastings ,its so far south you'll be unconsious by the time you get here,,,,,, also were so far behind the times this is what comes up if you go on the local Estate Agents website looking for detatched properties..

This is the street i was born in ,,in fact thats my sister playing with a hoop and a stick in the road..

After quite a bit of golf lessons, I finally took my 7 year old son for his first round the other day. And how proud am I??
I am no golfer, so I am not in a position to judge, but he went round our local 18 hole municipal course in 135 shots.
I am so delighted I am putting it on here!!! 135 is a lot of shots, but he is only 7, and managed to get a 9 on the 540 yard par 5!!
Watch out Tiger. Eddy is on your stripey tail.

Alan,

First of all, Well Done to your son.
I have only played about 5 times and when I did hit the ball I was told that I had a very powerful swing as the ball traveled a good distance. The problem I had was it took about 10 swings to hit the B....y thing.
I was like the guy you see in the comedy sketches, the one who digs so deep in the bunker he ends up in a 6' hole.
I never did become interest in playing but do love to watch the big matches on TV.
If you look at most sport champions, they do start early, so all the best to Eddy. I hope he keeps it up.

Alan - did you count the airshots? Also very kind to give him putts of under three feet. Encourage him as it is the greatest game, particularly good imo if played properly for developing mental strength. I played to my lowest handicap (7) before I left school and since retirement 5 years ago determined to get back into single figures. Made it to 10 very briefly, but now 11.1 and rising.

I have just been e-mailed by The Book Depository to buy a copy of 'Austerity Britain', 1945-1951 by David Kynaston.

Since I was born just before the end of the war, this period covers my early childhood and, since it is superbly written and has excellent photographs, would obviously stimulate some quite fond memories for me. I was thus tempted to read the reviews and, since they are very interesting, I reproduce just some of them below for your amusement:

What particularly stands out is how much different the nation was back then. The Britain that emerges from these pages is a nation driven by an industrial economy, with an overwhelmingly white and predominantly male workforce in physically demanding jobs producing a quarter of the world's manufactured goods. The everyday lives of these Britons was different as well, lacking not only the modern conveniences that the author notes early in the text but even many of the basics of prewar life, basics which had been sacrificed to the exigencies of war.

.....

We had won the war but the peace was tougher than the war for a lot of people. Rationing went on for years and the old attitudes in society did not break down quickly enough.

I did not start to take notice of what was going on in society until about 1963 and the attitudes that are set out in this book certainly prevailed for thr next twenty years. All the old threadbare cliches of privilege and what society was all about still existed.

In 1946 the National Trust had a meeting and one of their representatives said about Montacute House in somerset that the public could not of course be admitted to the house because they smelt. There was two minutes dead silence.

People did smell in 1946 if you read about their washing an living conditions.

Housing was a big priority then as now Neil Kinnock's family moved in November 1947 to a new two bed-roomed prefab on a council estate in Nant-y Bwch It was like moving to Beverly Hills he recalled It had a fridge, a bath, central heating and a smokeless grate... and people used to come just to look at it.

The BBC was holding up standards as always and banned in 1948 jokes about lavatories, effeminacy in men, immorality of any kind.Extreme care should be taken about certain references such as pre natal influences(e.g. his mother was frightened by a donkey and marital infidelity.

The public's views on extra marital sex were recorded. One taxi proprietor said I may say my wife and I have dropped one or two people who weren't playing the game ,we didn't think they were worth knowing.

It is an interesting old fashioned view that you would ostracise people for immorality. You would be ploughing a lonely furrow now if you did that.

In economic terms there was lot of price fixing and when proper competition came later British industry were not up to it because they had had such cosy arrangements.

There were standards to be maintained and a lot of people saw themselves as gentleman and had a code Shoes have laces, motor cars are black jelly is not officer's food. People believed this stuff.

Price fixing was everywhere between such companies as Lyons and Wall's in ice creams. Selling was a gentleman's existence with Sheffield operating as a big cartel. Orders were reported to the respective trade and association committee and at the end the day they would tell you what prices to quote. The price fixing was incredible.

British industry was not prepared to follow the American gospel of productivity and the 3 Ss standardisation, simplification specialisation.

In education only those who passed the eleven plus were deemed fit for a decent education and people like Cliff Richard did not pass and neither did John Prescott and the author said did not get the bike and thereafter never quite forgave the world.

All these attitudes were alive and well right through my teens in the sixties and well into the seventies. Some of them are still around now sixty years later.

If you want to understand present day Britain this is the book for you and at 632 pages before you get to the notes and index it is a hefty read but well worth it.

I will be quoting it to all those who think today's problems are some how unique.

We have seen it all before.

....

The subject of the decline of Britain's place in the world has a special interest for Americans, who wonder if it's their turn next. In 1945 a quarter of the world was ruled by King George, Emperor of India, Liege Lord of Canada etc. The Union Jack flew over Jerusalem and Hong Kong. Britain had stood for the world against Hitler and had won. Yet the British found that they were poverty-stricken. There were many theories to account for this. A favorite theory for Americans was that it was due to the British embrace of socialism and government controls.

Apparently Amazon have it available at 17.74 incl delivery. I might just treat myself. :-)

Nostalgias not what it used to be..................

On a serious note, as a nation we could well do with answering two questions. Can we learn from our past (good and bad), and can we learn from others.
We did, on the whole, a very good job of dismantling an empire. We were very bad at embracing the modern world. We were very good at increasing and preserving liberties. We were very bad at allowing the loudest and most extreme voices to be heard and followed.
I think we now face another big peacetime challenge. Do we embrace and become part of a global politik, which must surely be coming, or do we plough our own unique british furrow.
The economic argument for complying with a global brand is compelling. Spreading of risk and security in numbers should lead to steady and almost continuous growth. The moral argument for maintaining our independant status is equally compelling. The world is slowly dividing up into the haves and have nots. The industrialised west and far east on one side and the african and middle eastern nations on the other. When the oil starts to dry, the uneasy calm will be broken and the Muslim v west skirmish of now is just a foretaste of the powerplay to come.
We look enviously (?) at the USA for its success and ease of living and happily import anything they do or sell and adopt it as our own. We are American in all but passport. In the way our children talk and act, how we run our business and economy. But I suspect the American dream is more of a dream than most will admit. In pursuit of liberty they have allowed the extremism of liberalism and in world politics they have allowed the extremism of protectionism at any price.
They are financially on the verge of bankruptcy and morally suspect, yet these are the people we will follow in our quest for world unity.
We are probably so far down the road to a global brand that there is no choice left, for our children will make that decision and they are exposed to US tv and lifestyle far more than we were. They do not distinguish the two cultures, yet they have no idea of the trailer park lives and violent deaths that are part of modern America. They see Friends not the ghettos, and they want it.
If you yearn now for the Britain of your youth, then is that because you forget the bad sanitation and availabilty of consumerism and remember the simple things and happiness at being a wonderfully moderate nation? These things have passed at the hands of globalisation and it accelerates.
How fondly will we look back in 20 years, when our fortunes are dicatated by a world order and we are just another small island, following the American dream and at war (possibly cold) with the other one third of the world.
Yours sincerely,
Nostradamus.

'We are American in all but passport.'

You speak for yourself, Alan. With the mix we now have of different nationalities and cultures (including much that has remained from the Britain of our childhoods) and our tradition of tolerence and fair play, I'd say we're far from being American.

And why do you think that as a nation we're following the so-called 'American Dream'? I see no evidence of it.

We do excellent curries in the UK. However, I do think our Italian food has gotten a bit inferior to American Italian food.

I would say more, particularly on sport, but I have to go out. Unfortunately, we do not have American plumbing in our house and I have to go buy some spare parts for a fawcet.

oblo,
The next generation comes through. I watch my kids and their mates with American expressionisms and values. I see the way our lives are more and more dictated by the idealistic ideals of the liberals - surely reminiscent of the US liberal movement with its "new speak". No-one is fat anymore, they are obese lest we offend them etc. etc.
My children and their friends act more like extras from a Jerry Springer show everyday. They have no need to think any more - just to emote.
Watch any "young persons" show and see how people react now and tell me, hand on heart, that it is not following US trend.
Think back to how we have echoed US trends. The 80's and Greed is Good.
I don't want to appear anti-American. I just want it to stay in America.
You travel. Think of anywhere you have been that has been made better by American business. Where a country starts to adopt the consumerism and political values of the US, it seems (IMO) to spoil the natural beauty of the place and people.
McDonalds and Disney are fine, but where they appear, the culture disappears. Just my opinion, but I really do see a day when you will struggle to find a bacon butty, but will have no problem with a McMuffin. And thats it in a nutshell. We will find all things American, and nothing uniquely British. I don't want to see that.
Just my opinion.
Alan

Alan, 'I don't want to appear anti-American. I just want it to stay in America.
You travel. Think of anywhere you have been that has been made better by American business. Where a country starts to adopt the consumerism and political values of the US, it seems (IMO) to spoil the natural beauty of the place and people.
McDonalds and Disney are fine, but where they appear, the culture disappears. Just my opinion, but I really do see a day when you will struggle to find a bacon butty, but will have no problem with a McMuffin. And thats it in a nutshell. We will find all things American, and nothing uniquely British. I don't want to see that.
Just my opinion.'

I agree 110% with everything you've said there, but not with what preceded it.

The young do copy American ways - they have done since the 50's to some extent because they are by nature impressionable -but what happens is that as they grow older and mature (as we have!) they in the main come to their senses and fall back into 'British ways'.

I believe this is because the 'American Dream' and all it entails is primarily rather childish and appeals to the immature. No offence intended to Americans, but they tend to remain childish into adulthood and until the day they die! Much of the rest of the world tend to grow up.

Take your 80's 'greed is good' example - still stands in the US, but all but dead in the UK.

In addition, we are seeing a rejection of US culture the world over. I think that'll grow, even in Yorkshire!

The one thing Blair did for us was to illustrate how foolish it is to follow the US blindly as he did over foreign policy - I think that was a lesson many took on board.

Hi Oblo,

You mention rightly re our tradition of tolerance and fair play.
But I feel one of our biggest problems is, we are sometimes too tolerant of others when we should be saying enough is enough, and as for fair play, I'm all for it as long as the other person is.
I often feel we are the Aunt Patsies of the world, still playing rich uncle to anyone/country who recognizes us as a soft touch.

It gets better.
Took little eddy to the "Young Masters Golf" presentation evening tonight and he passed his cadetship with a distinction and won an award for most improved cadet.
Well happy.

Bagsee first to promote the merchandise Alan!

You got it, Kim (though the sponsors of YMG - Ping -may be a litle upset).

Greek,
Back several days to one of my favourite authors, Bill Bryson.
He relates the story of arriving in Europe for the first time as a backpacker. The first thing he did, cos he was hungry, was but a bar of chocolate. He claims it to be one of the great experiences of his life. He had no idea anything could taste that good.
It wasn't that he had never had chocolate, but being American, he had only ever eaten Hersheys. Even now, almost the only chocolate available in America is apparantly Hersheys. It certainly was when I was in Florida a couple of years ago.
Outraged that his childhood had been spent eating this inferior stuff he researched why. It transpires it is part of the American psyche that products and services need to be uniform. It is expected and welcomes and like a Brit in Benidorm seeking out fish and chips, an American will demand exactly what they are used to.
When this occurs, there is no product competition based on differences or quality. it is simply convenience and price. Hersheys won that battle and the result was uniform mediocrity.
He says he sees it now in the UK. The great breadth of visitor accomodation dying at the hands of Travelodge, and the street corner cafes becoming McD's or clones thereof. One day, if you want a coffee, it will be Starbucks or nothing.
Starbucks and Travelodge are fine institutions, and their wares have a role in society. Starbucks coffee can be wonderful, but will we be better off for the lack of choice and the competition for business or will we end up with Starbucks prices and the coffee equivilent of Hersheys?
He's right to fear this you know. Remember the times when you got a train or bus to a different town to shop, because the high street had very different shops, goods, experiences? Think of now. I could probably list the names of every shop on your towns high street, be it Aylesbury or Aberdeen, Wakefield or Walsall. Tell me that such a position enriches our lives.
I'm probably in a minority of one, and something of a dinosaur but I like my beer brown, my cigs high tar and above all, a choice in what I eat, do, see, stay in and buy, and I like a real choice. Not Hersheys milk or Hersheys plain.