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

And to be young was very boring
(Apologies to Billy Wordsworth)

I used to say that if an 80's Revival ever started, I'd know it was time for me to curl up and die. Well...this weekend I passed an 80's theme bar. (So now I'm embracing the old hippy logan: 'Never trust anyone over 25...30...35...40...')

It got me thinking...there are a small number of iconic decades: The Twenties; The Sixties which represent times of great social and cultural change. Even with the less iconic ones, we associate certain things with them.

So...what do we associate with the 80's?

I'm presuming said bar will be playing Wham and Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, rather than the lo-fi indie dirges that I was listening to at the time.

Tina Turner finally hit the big time in the 80s.

Well, yes. Does this capture the Zeitgeist?

Hmm. Iteresting that I mis-typed 'slogan' as 'logan' above. One theory would be poor typing. But if we go with the Freudians...maybe I was subconsciously thinking of Logan's Run...which would be apt.

The '80s always make me think of neon colors, hideous "modern" furniture, and those goofy Patrick Nagel paintings.

Been to a couple of '80s-retro clubs before, and yeah, they always play the Duran Duran stuff and never have any Replacements, Husker Du, or Killing Joke.

We used to have an all-'80s radio station when the big retro fad first kicked off about five years ago, on Friday nights from 8:00 till midnight the format was "alternative", so there was a reasonable amount of listenable stuff.

The fall of the Berlin Wall (though it just scrapes in)

The miners' strike

And Cliff Richard trying to like a trendsetter by rollerskating with a Walkman on.

Err..

Stiff Little Fingers

The Tube

MTV

The Clash, The Cure

Depeche Mode

Yeh, neon stuff...and most especially ankle socks

Baggies with zips

Ankle boots with a lorra buckles

Torville and Dean

John McEnroe

Blue Peter

'Relax' being banned on radio one

Neighbours and East Enders

Spiky BIGHAIR with all kinds of stuff in it

Jelly shoes and bags

I think that's enuff for now...

Colour schemes don't really go in decades, they change every five years.

Late 70's - sky blue, grey
Early 80's - pastel pinks, greens
Late 80's - ?
Early 90's - grey and bright orange
Late 90's - murky purple, dark orange, dark green
Early 00's - grey and brighy orange again

>Stiff Little Fingers<

Ah, was just listening to them yesterday. Sweet!

Miami Vice, Fraggle Rock, Snorks, and Smurfs

Big, stupid dangly earrings

Reaganomics

I heard a good story (on the radio) from a member of SLF. They used to hang out with Rev Dr Paisley's daughter. One day they ended up at her house round about teatime and were given a plate of sandwiches to share. After a little while, the Rev Dr re-entered the room and said, with a wink, 'Those sandwiches are poisoned, by the way.'

I think for me, the 80's can be summed up with one word. It's a highly offensive word, so I'll have to use blanks: T-------r.

Much followed from her domination of politics and shaping of the economy...from the big hair and power shoulders (for women) and red braces with shirts (for the men) to the vapidity of much of the musical scene. to the general stifling of the culture and politics as everyone feared for the jobs they relied on to pay their crippling mortgages.

I listened to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush singing "Don't Give Up" on an old CD the other day. How times have changed. Here was a man ruined by unemployment. I don't know about Scotland where you are, but unemployment is long gone in Ireland. We import Eastern Europeans and Asians to do the jobs we don't like (they do them much better too).

Unemployment has gotten worse here in the US. Of course, it's down below 5% now, which is looked at by the administration as largely people who "don't want to work". I'm sure some of them don't, but I'll digress.

Mine is the first generation in America to be substantially worse off financially and with worse prospects (especially when we get older and have no retirement to look forward to- Social Security will be gone by then) than our parents' generation. Kind of a sad statistic, especially as this is still the wealthiest country by far, that the gap between rich and poor keeps widening, and the middle class keeps shrinking. Thanks to Reagan's legacy.

Ireland is now considered to be the second wealthiest country in the world according to recent results (last week).

Of 18 industrialised countries surveyed, only the US and Italy had a higher poverty rate than Ireland.

Only Italy had a higher rate of illiteracy than Ireland.

Of the top 30 developed countries, only the US, Hong Kong, Portugal and New Zealand had more inequality (presumably between rich and poor).

It seems odd to me that poverty and illiteracy rates can be so high in nations which are wealthy and have such low rates of unemployment. If 95% of the population is working, how come almost as many are poor or in debt up to their eyes?

for once again causing such massive thread drift.

I was reading that Wahington DC has an infant mortality rate double that of Beirut. And as a whole, the US compared unfavourably with (A third world country I can't recall).

Unemployment must be counted in strange ways. When I first met my wife, she was working with offenders in Essex and Hertfordshire. She often had to work evenings, because they all had jobs. In Glasgow, on the other hand, there are huge estates (US = 'Projects') with third generation unemployment.

Oh...and Glaswegians are, on average, (forget-how-many) inches shorter than southern Englanders - the result of poor housing and diet.

They should get on their bikes!

I was thinking...T------r also legitimised the IRA. There are two classic justifications for political violence: 1) You have oppressive measures used against you 2) You have no other means of political engagement. Well, we already had internment (from Callaghan?). It was T------r who was responsible for giving us the bizarre spectacle of Gerry Adams dubbed into English.

I don't know why Ireland is doing so well these days. We voted a crook into power, knowing full well that he was a crook, and he sorted us out. But lots of other countries have crooks in power don't they?

I think of MTV first, especially Duran Duran and The Police. And I think of being on campus, riding my bike around, doing yoga, doing homework, kissing my boyfriend. The Eighties were good for me.

I remember trying to hitch-hike at a motorway junction in Leicestershire, being picked up by the police and dropped ten miles on, in the middle of nowhere. Something to do with the Miners' Strike, Leicestershire being scab country. All I was trying to do was to visit friends in London!

Telephone deregulation, which made everyone's bills increase. Deregulation of the freight trucking industry, which made truckers' salaries decrease (my dad was a cop and was with the Teamsters' Union, so I heard a lot of grumbling about that).

The girls at my high school had *enormous* high hair.

I remember Aqua Net hair spray, Dippity-Do hair gel, and the Colgate toothpaste pump (which had a commercial which resembled a Madness video).

Overall, I don't think the '80s were that good for me, but I think I was too young to notice for tha majority of the decade.