h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The old days is a relative term. I mean, I think of the 90s as some pretty good old days, but I was in high school back then. The days before university deadlines, work deadlines and MOTs.
I can't see anything wrong with looking back to the past, so long as you're not stuck there. A sense of perspective is important. If you can't bring yourself to accept that things do change sometimes, the world must surely be quite terrifying.
Politeness and respect? Yeah, I'd like some of that. More "yes sir" in classes and less "you can't touch me, I know my rights". Which is funny considering the torrent of verbal and emotional abuse some kids will attempt to inflict. Go figure. But then you can go too far in either direction, there's either no discipline so kids run amok or too much discipline where kids can't be kids. And they seem to get such a short amount of time before the media thrusts puberty forcefully on them, now.
The time for nostalgia getting shorter? Nostalgia has almost become an industry, that's the thing. Seems that Hollywood and the TV companies have dedicated people to mining my childhood for fresh content. Transformers, Thomas the Tank Engine, Alvin and the Chipmunks, H2G2...

I'll be happy if they create movies out of the things I used to watch religiously, though. Give me Knightmare. Give me the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote.
Oh wait. Tron Legacy. Maybe nostalgia flicks aren't so bad after all.

I agree - it is relative, and it is also very selective. Whilst it is desirable to have more of the old respects, civility etc., if we bring back everything, who wants the rickets, polio? Who wants to go back to houses with single glazing (metal frames at that), no central heating and no inside plumbing? And yes I can remember all of those. (no, I didn't get rickets or polio, just remember them being around) The "good old days" might have been a happier time for a lot of folks, but certainly not everyone, and not all aspects of daily life.

How old do you have to be and what need you have done with your life to make 'The good old days' a talking point ?
Quite funny really. Biocorp talks of the nineties, the decade after Maggie pensioned me off. If life begins at forty, my life didn't start until the sixties, well after my early teens spent in a country at war.
Things have obviously improved since then but the improvements are now looked upon as human rights, with no appreciation or understanding of what has been done to acquire those improvements. Progress though life does not change, you still have to get your foot on the housing ladder, this is more important now since people see home ownership as a basic right along with two family incomes and two cars. This assumes of course a 'normal' family.
We still have givers and takers and the good old days are still there with the those who have and those who have not still looking at life in much the same way as the haves and have nots have always done.
Just like the weather, life past, present and future will always be a talking point. The points you choose to talk about will depend upon your age and what you have done with your life. In general it will be found that birds of a feather stick together.
One thing is certain, I have enjoyed a much better standard of living than my parents did and I sincerely hope that my children and my grandchildren will be able to say the same.

The reason we look back fondly for the most part is that we feel left behind in some aspects of life and we yearn for a life we could understand. There are a lot of things we look back on fondly by rewriting history!
Letters - personal, lovely to look at etc. but what a chore!!!
Facebook has allowed my children to get back in touch with friends who they would never have got back in touch with when I was their age.
Teens - we were better behaved, never threatened anyone etc.
We binge drank with the best of them at about 14 or 15 and were getting served in pubs with the full knowledge of landlords!
Ah the good old days!!
Tv - well you only have to look at 90% of the 'comedies' we used to laugh at. There will always be the 10% that we choose to remember!
All in all, nostalgia is great to have but you mustn't get stuck there!!
SBE

Again summerbayexile it's all relative.
Some would say the good old days were BTV (Before TV)
The internet before Facebook allowed me to contact old friends. That was in the good old internet days before 'texting' and the 'obligatory' mobile phone.

Mobile phones, yes. I miss the days that you'd arrange to meet someone on Friday and they'd just be there at the agreed place and time. No last minute texts suggesting somewhere else or telling you they were running late and changing the time. We didn't have that luxury. But I'm sounding a bit Four Yorkshiremen now...

No telephone in my home until after my children were born.

hi anyone still about im not a moblie phone fan, i hate them lol but when was on the citizens band radio in 1982 onward, there was home and mobile units there was also what could be termed as the forerunner to the mobile system i had a cb handset, i had in the case round my neck with a seperate mike, earphone and ariel(rubber duck). i could walk about and on the 40 channels, 19 was to calling channel, i call for say sugerlump, i was deltabravo. we go to a chaneel except 33 and 9 and call chat as you would on a phone not recommended in stores, garages and gov and hospitals lol. in 2003 we had a thread, memory lane, where people would air there past and about things gone by, link below J.H.D. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/plain/F117267?thread=320934