Christmas Carols in Moscow

Christmas is now on the horizon and it's time for us all to focus on the ritual of present transfer. Now being of a certain age, i.e. over 40 (but only just mind you) and I'm getting to the point where I find myself saying stupid things that show just how old and untrendy I've become.  The classic old personism is “When I were a lad!” you even get to affect a rather crappy northern accent as if you actually delivered Hovis bread at 5am every morning.

 It’s one of those slightly patronising things you fall into when you have kids, things you promised yourself you wouldn’t do or say because they sounded so stupid when you were on the receiving end of them.  Some of the things you heard were more inane than others, my all time favourite being “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” or “I’ll wipe that smile off your face.” The mental imagery for those two are just exquisite. I’m happy to say that I have managed to resist most, but while my two boys are under 10 there is still a wonderfully innocent look of amazed incredulity when you tell them that there were no such things as playstations back in the day and phones were very immobile if you had one at all. When you tell them that the nearest you got to a curry was a boil in the bag Vesta meal for 2. Which was basically 4 lumps of chicken in a yellow sauce that resembled nothing else on earth I can think of other than cat bile. They just stand there slack mouthed like fish in a tank.

Looking back things were pretty boring, so the next time you hear some old fart tell you things were so much better in the “Good old days” then you have my permission to flop out the old boy and urinate on his shoes. Ladies you can just smack em in the chops, I can’t condone any woman squatting in the street Paula Radcliffe stylee, it's not nice and any moral high ground you were about to hold has been immediately relinquished.

Things were not better in the good old days and when exactly were these so called good old days, mi ol’ china cocknee sparra. Let’s take a little look at exactly when these Utopian Edens were shall we? Let’s discount the 80’s and 70’s as I’m 40 and I lived through those times. They were basically crap, my Walkman ate both tapes and batteries for fun and the hair cuts were rubbish.

The 60’s were how shall I say it, a pretty mixed bag. The cold war was in full affect so life on the wrong side of the iron curtain was particularly rubbish, living on bread, gruel and lies. The Germans were building a great big wall through Berlin; I reckon that wasn’t too good for morale. The rest of the world were left wondering if that bloke with massive eyebrows in Moscow was going to push his big red button this week. Somewhat tense you might say! The Vietnam War was on the rise and the bay of pigs was a complete cock up as well so the Yanks weren’t too happy either, especially the black ones that weren’t even allowed to sit on the best seats on the bus. China was using its little red book to be very nasty to its poor people. The Israelis’ had a war which lasted 6 days. The Cuban’s had a missile crisis and the whole world shat its pants.  The feminist movement went into full affect in the early 60’s so by definition half the world had the hump and we all know how bad that can be. We had TV, but only 2 channels, how was that good! On the flip side, the music was good; we went to the moon, Barbie got a boyfriend (Ken), the first Lamborghini was built, there were some quality movies  - Spartacus, Jungle Book & The Dirty Dozen and things were a lot more colourful than the grey 50’s. Everyone had more fun, but you still died of some basic stuff in hospitals, a lot of people still didn’t have an inside toilet and if you lived up North there was a good chance someone you knew had died down a coal mine. That doesn’t sound much like the good old days does it?

How do the 50’s shape up? Well badly if you ask me. We still had rationing, i.e. not enough food. There was no world war, but we had a spin off war, something on the side, a cheese and biscuits war in Korea, with the Americans itching to use their H bombs again. The Russians were very grumpy and shot lots of rockets into space to annoy the Americans. We had the Mau Mau in Kenya chopping up white people, China running out of food and millions starving, that wasn’t so good. Basically everyone was skint and tired from the war. You were lucky if you lived till you were 60, no heating, no plumbing, minimal electric, everyone in the north lived on lard, the music was rubbish, the films were poor, the King died, the Ruskies were nicking countries Hitler Stylee, the French started the Vietnam war which they deftly passed to the Americans when it went a bit Pete Tong, the cars were death traps, Africa was revolting, the airplanes kept crashing, someone nicked the Suez canal, posh spies nicked all our secrets and only rich people could drink champagne. Rubbish.

The 40’s had a war and the 30’s had a depression so they were not even in the running as the good old days. The 20’s were completely screwed, the yanks banned booze, the rest of us were either having a revolution, a communist uprising, a fascist take over, a neighbourly war or a disintegrating empire. Then to top it off the world’s finances crashed and the poor couldn’t even afford lard.

So the next time someone says the young haven’t had it so good you shake their hand and tell them they are so right. Then remind them its not just the nippers, that yes we’ve had a few ups and downs but everyone has never had it so good, everyone has a massive tele, a mobile phone, heating, continuous electricity, Fridge freezers, hospitals that do amazing things, TV with 100’s of channels, knowledge on tap, books, science, music on demand, films at their finger tips, freedom of speech, the vote, a mind blowing array of foods and tastes brought to our shores by people from around the world. Holidays, travel, more food than people know what to do with, the right of ownership, emergency services, more cash in your pocket than ever before and those hand warmer things that you use at golf. If anyone tells you it was better at any other time then they are idiots.