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

I seriously intended to get rid of my huge pile of old magazines and back in 2016 I started a thread about them. http://www.h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/F56786?thread=8315766&skip=0&show=20 Don't know why that project fizzled out, but I think I should continue with it. I have sorted the magazines into chronological order. But I still can't bring myself to throw them out before I've had another leaf through them. I think I'm a bit OCD. So - back in the early 1980s, before I had children, I used to buy Cosmopolitan. COSMOPOLITAN December 1980 New records being reviewed: Double Fantasy, John and Yoko. Neil Diamond, The Jazz Singer. (or was that a film?) New books - Jeffrey Archer's Kane and Abel Articles on women in Parliament, the 300 group - people are still complaining today about quotas in politics. Percentage of women doctors in the UK well below 20% (I think that has changed now) Consultants practically zero! Dearth of female doctors particularly in obstetrics and gynaecology. I hope that has changed worldwide. For Heaven's sakes! An article pointing out that the "EEC" as it was then known, which at the time consisted of 12 member states, provides grants for women to train and start up businesses. No British women are taking advantage of these grants - possibly they don't know about them. Anyway - no longer relevant. Britain is no longer in the EU. There is an ad for flight on the Concorde!!! People having babies in their late 30s/early 40s are making the news. Cilla Black and Diana Rigg are quoted as examples. Both now no longer with us. "Nancy Reagan is the New American Woman" Interesting fact: Sainsburys was first run by a woman when it was founded in 1869. Fashion and home: The hair! The make up! The shoulder pads! Bathrooms full of greenery. Not much fun for arachnaphobes who want to take a bath.

Historical documents indeed! Fascinating.

In 1980 I was not long born and my mum was classed as a 'geriatric mother' because she was in her late 30s. Bathrooms full of greenery is a fascinating concept - I wonder if that would mean the spiders were happy in the greenery rather than visible in the room, but they might accidentally fall in the bath (I don't have greenery in my bathroom and I noticed a spider in the hallway just before I got in the shower yesterday - by the time I was out of the shower it was in the room with me Luckily it wasn't too large, so I was able to finish getting dressed before removing it)

My grandmother married at 34, and had my father when she was 35.

Yes, "Jazz singer" was a film with Neil Diamond.

1980 was at least 40 years ago. I had been in my job for five years, and had 32 years of remaining career ahead of me. Now I'm ten years retired.

Was it Cosmopolitan that featured Burt Reynolds in a nude centerfold, or am I thinking of another magazine? Was anyone supposed to consider him sexy? Nowadays, people would get sexual thrills by looking at underwear videos on Youtube.

Don't ask me how I know.

Gossip magazines are all pretty worthless, but you’re right - after a period of time they become fascinating records of what we actually thought, said and did, rather than what got recorded in the history books. Thanks for resurrecting this thread

These are records of what the editors of a magazine thought would attract readers. Apparently a successful magazine.

I remember reading and enjoying that old thread. I wish I had a pile of old magazines from my youth, how fascinating!

Deb

We had "Arizona Highways"

Couldn't bear to throw them out, as the pictures were so gorgeous.