Changes for the worse that have happened in my lifetime

[Drago]

Chocolate bars getting steadily smaller, while the price increases. The manufacturers cynically tell us that it's part of their fight against obesity - more like their fight to enhance profits. Wagon Wheels used to be the size of dustbin lids, and curly wurlys were so large some people used them as ladders.

 

[Globalti]

Why?

Why? Have you any idea what Mugabe and his chums did to that country and its people? Of all the people I've met in Africa the Zimbabweans are the ones who have most impressed me, they are educated, hard-working people who deserved a chance after colonialism but their leaders looted and raped the country and impoverished them all. Now after Mugabe the situation is actually worse, if that's possible.

 

[Drago]

Rhodesia pretty much fed the entire continent south of the equator.

Zimbabwe can't feed a fraction of it's own population.

 

[oldwheels]

Mass tourism and the destruction of communities to satisfy what exactly?

 

[Jenkins]

The end of the Newcastle - Bergen ferry service.
Death of Lemmy (thanks @Drago for that)
Brexit
The decline of the cotter pin

@Drago killed Lemmy . I thought it was the booze that did it.

 

[Moodyman]

Why? Have you any idea what Mugabe and his chums did to that country and its people?

Yes. The second half of his tenure he destroyed the economic capacity of the country turning it from the bread basket of Africa to a basket case.

But, many Africans remember his struggle as a 'freedom fighter' and the great improvements in the first half of his Presidency. They also feel that, while the land seizure was very badly managed the British, under Tony Blair, bear considerable responsibility for withdrawing from the Lancaster House Agreement.

 

[Blue Hills]

The end of the cold war - it was good for jobs,

Defence spending is as I understand it very capital intensive - creates very few jobs for the dosh deployed.
For decades Britain suffered shoddy infrastructure because of mega dosh diverted into gee whizz warplanes, missile systems etc etc. While Germany rebuilt itself from the rubble up.

 

[Drago]

These roadside shrines are a turn for the worse. If I dropped dead in a brothel, or in the fast checkout at M&S no one would erect a shrine, so why do people insist upon building them at the roadside?

 

[Blue Hills]

These roadside shrines are a turn for the worse. If I dropped dead in a brothel, or in the fast checkout at M&S no one would erect a shrine, so why do people insist upon building them at the roadside?

it's part of the new feely feely britain.
it's also common in some southern european places* anyway - has been for a long time.
And it may at least cause some drivers to slow down on dodgy bends etc .

* as is, or was until recently, the habit of paying folk to wail at people's funerals.
Pay me enough, with a free bar pass, and I'll pop along to yours

 

[Drago]

When I go there'll be hordes of fit middle aged chicks wailing at my funeral

 

[Blue Hills]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_aSbp9ZIv8

 

[Alex H]

These roadside shrines are a turn for the worse. If I dropped dead in a brothel, or in the fast checkout at M&S no one would erect a shrine, so why do people insist upon building them at the roadside?

You'll never know will you?

 

[Drago]

I intend to die aged 118, jumping out of a ladies bedroom window with my trousers gripped in my teeth. That'll make for a good shrine.

 

[Gunk]

Celebrity culture, it’s like a disease

 

[Drago]

Defence spending is as I understand it very capital intensive - creates very few jobs for the dosh deployed.
For decades Britain suffered shoddy infrastructure because of mega dosh diverted into gee whizz warplanes, missile systems etc etc. While Germany rebuilt itself from the rubble up.

Lets not forget, of course, that the only reason we weren't having to teach German in our schools is because of the mega dosh diverted into the military.

The economic and mercantile rise of Germany in relation to the allied nations was a failure of politics and the sudden relevance of a new nation under arms that had only ever been an ally of convenience up until then. Had the Soviet Union not required massive diversion or resources to counter, and there been a political consensus to do so amongst the victorious nations, the allied home economies would have prospered at a much faster rate while the political boot was kept on Germany's windpipe. Even worse, while the USSR required massive military spending to counter, and the allies needed to maintain an army of occupation to stop yet another rise of rampant German nationalism, Germany was having to spend very little itself militarily and was being protected for free by the allies. To this day there is still a significant foreign military presence in Germany, and anyone who thinks it is there solely to discourage the Russkies is sadly mistaken.

The whole mess was caused by history, politics and suspicion. The manufacture of of weaponry is very lucrative, keeps many people employed in their manufacture, and the manufacture of the tools and equipment to facilitate that manufacture, maintains strategic manufacturing skills that might otherwise be lost, and also requires lots of military personnel be hired to operate it. in addition, home grown defence manufacturing keeps the £££ spent on our shores, paying wages, being spent in shops and on taxes. Sadly, a lot of the ownership is foreign, but that is again a political and separate economic issue rather than a failure of manufacturing. The industry us very good at many economic level - it's only when the outside considerations of politics and commerce starts to interfere that the playing field can become massively skewed, as we saw post war.

At the cold war was kinda cool. Commies were bad, protect and survive leaflets were cool, the peace demonstrators at US airbases were the butt of jokes, and so the world turned.