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

Tomorrow, 20th of November is the 42th anniversary of Franco´s death.

I was a child then, however I have a few very clear memories of that day and the following ones.

The first thing is about my father. He summoned all of us and very seriously told us that we said NOTHING in case someone asked any of us about Franco´s death. He didn´t explain why, "just say nothing my children, this is somethig new and it´s better to keep quiet."

At school and after a few days, and probably because there was a real feeling that the dictatorship was over and democracy was coming, my teacher told us that we all were living a historical moment. He looked very happy.

later, my mother was kind of telling off my father because he was reading a copy of a working class newspaper: Mundo Obrero, it was edited by the Spanish Communist Party that would be legalized a few months later.

Then came the first democratic elections since 1936, it was June, 1977. There was a general feeling of hope and worry at the same time.

There was a far right coup in 1981, it failed, and in 1982 the socialist party won the general elections. I was a teenager then.

Spain started to change in many aspects. However, the francoism is still alive.

Childhood? Does adolescence count? I remember John F Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Some younger researchers might remember 9/1/01. My Father still remembers the Hurricane of 1938
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_New_England_hurricane
My late uncle was picking apples when the storm came. He walked home -- it was a five-mile trek through downed trees and huge wind gusts. He later wondered how he made it alive.

I remember the head coming into the classroom when George VI died, We were too young to realise why he was upset.
I was frying liver and onions for friends at uni when the radio interrupted a sports report to tell us Kennedy had been assassinated.

JFK assassination,Churchill's funeral.

Soyuz Apollo linkup and Thatcher's speech upon becoming PM is all that comes to mind really. The Falklands War when I was 15 I suppose.

The Great Storm of 1987 and the loss of Shanklin Pier.
Watching Newsround and hearing about the Shuttle Challenger exploding (Newsround is a news programme for children and it was the first in the UK to report on the explosion).
The collapse of the Berlin Wall and all the countries in Europe turning up and making my geography books obsolete.
The freeing of Nelson Mandela – mainly because my mum wouldn't stop singing 'Free-eee-eee Nelson Mandela' very badly and I just wanted her to stop. I'd tell her 'He's free, you can stop singing now' but she wouldn't.
Oh, and the Day Without News – the day Princess Diana died. It was a day without news as it was the only day in the years I did my paper round in which there were no newspapers on the Island. The delivery lorries arrived mid-morning rather than at dawn, by which time I was at school.

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Those astonishing pictures from the moon in 1969. I remember watching on a 405-line grainy black-and-white TV as these shadowy figures explored the craters and fooled around. My favourite bit was when they ran out of food after the soup dragon went on strike.

All I can remember is watching the last Apollo splashdown, Apollo 17. I was pretty young. My earliest memories of TV news is the Apollo 17 splashdown and Nixon. I was so young I was starting to like seeing both rather than disliking them for interrupting my normal programming, like The Monkees or The Banana Bunch.

Yuri Gagarin's flight.

The first space walk.

The moon landing.

Apollo 13.

I was a lad and really excited by space.

Churchill's funeral.

Winning the World Cup and the trophy being 'lost' and found by Pickles (pretty sure that was his name).

Hippies in general and I think that I was aware of Woodstock.

The awful winter of 63(?) I can just remember MASSES of snow.

The Great Train Robbery.

Harry Roberts (a London murderer. There was a joke...... How did they catch Harry Roberts? He pushed button B in a phone box and out came 4 coppers. You have to be British and of a certain age to understand it though.)

The Moors Murders. There was a sort of hysteria about with concern about the possibility of children being abducted.

PP.

was anyone unaware of Woodstock, after the fact? Not to worry, I have the whole concert on CD. Three CDs full. I've also seen "Taking Wodostock." And the video that was made from Woodstock footage. Talk about a generation celebrating itself as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Many of the parents of the Woodstock generation slogged through World War II, but the effort of recovering from it and raising kids to replace the war dead must have left them too enervated to point out the obvious egotism of their children's thought bubble .

Generation X [a.k.a. the latchkey generation] used to complain about being largely ignored by the Baby Boomers, and the generation *after* Generation X is overwhelmed by the evidence that they will never get the kinds of jobs for which they are suited.

From my childhood? The two obvious ones - the end of JFK, and a famous step my a man named Armstrong.

Getting back to the death of Franco, I just missed that one, being born the day after (Yep, I turned 42 yesterday. One possible question of life, the universe and everything seems to be "What's the damage?")

Historical events: Glasnost/Perestrojka, Berlin wall and changing geography.

My kids were afraid they had to do their geography test again as a result of the Catalunya referendum. (They were jealous after I told them about former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union)

The selfishness of Baby Boomers has been in the news in the UK a lot lately (well, it was until the Zimbabwe drama) as they have been accused of blocking all attempts to solve the housing crisis (few people under the age of 50 can afford their own home) http://www.metro.news/selfish-baby-boomers-stop-new-housing/822400/

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Happy belated birthday Caiman raptor elk!

It was interesting yesterday on Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish about Generations and how the boundaries are blurred...

My parents are fairly accurately described as Baby Boomers. I think I'm officially Generation X, but I spent so long at University I slipped into Generation Y in the sense that my dad did better than his dad by working his way up the ranks in a company, but with the way the job market works these days I don't think it's possible for me to match his career achievements, never mind exceed them... At least I achieved "Graduate Salary" level last year (even though I Graduated 10 years ago)...

In terms of historical events, I didn't really follow much, but I do remember Thatcher and Reagan, plus Gorbachev and Glasnost/Perestrojka.

I just slipped into the "baby boom" - October of 1959. I bought my 1st and only home at the age of 40 - - - with a helluva lot of scratching and scraping. Perhaps my fault by giving 37 years to military service and support, well known for not being well paying.

But still - are the new kids expecting to earn enough to buy a home by age 25? I have not known any 'boomers' that bought much younger than 20 plus years of employment.

This is a bit long (35 min) but it's an enlightening look at how we label generations and whether our assumptions about millennials (or any other generation are valid or whether it's more a case of young people being young people. Older generations have been complaining about younger generations being spoiled, lazy, selfish, self absorbed, &c for a very long time.

That said, there is something to baby boomers taking advantage of opportunities and advantages unavailable to the generations following them. I've never expected to reap the benefits of Social Security that I've been paying into as it will either be bankrupt or dissolved before I reach a likely delayed retirement age.

http://youtu.be/xbt99rhf6zc

Socrates was apparently displeased with the youngsters in his time as well. I take it with a grain of salt, though. Any parent or person of parenting age would feel impelled to justify his/her generation by pointing out where the young are going wrong. And the young, being young, would ignore much of it until later, when they realize that they should have listened more closely.

Sorry 'selfishness' should have been in inverted commas.

By 'buy their own home' I mean be able to afford to move out of their parents' home.

Please note this is a vast over-simplication:
As the UK has the highest population density in Europe, there aren't enough houses for everyone to live in and so the price of houses has skyrocketed. In order to keep up with population growth about half a million houses need to be built each year, but no-one wants to destroy the countryside in order to do so. It varies depending on region but a typical small house costs about £250,000 which Google tells me is very roughly $425,000/CAD or $335,000/USD.
As people can't afford that, even if you start saving in your 20s, if you are single it is becoming increasingly common to live with parents into your 30s and 40s before you are finally able to afford to move out. (Renting isn't often an affordable alternative as the landlord, having spent £250k on a new house, wants to get their money back and ensure the rent is more than the mortgage).
There are now growing areas of the UK where people with jobs such as teachers, nurses, firemen and policemen etc cannot afford to live.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/14/affordable-housing-key-workers-cost

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I can remember seeing both Churchill's funeral & first Man on the Moon on TV. Probably didn't take much interest in news before that.

BB - those are the sort of prices of simple homes in our major cities. For our youth, there are several fold of problems.

They want to live in these big cities, where costs of everything are beyond stupid.

They don't want to begin working for less than top dollar rates of 30-year professionals.

And they refuse to look at living in places anything less than "the big lights" of the city.

Our country has bazillions of acres open, but not appealing to a kid who likes the easy and comfy sort of life that the boomers gave them