Perspectives

Is it a wonder that my generation, post war nippers, are now called 'Grumpy Old Bastards!' No! Things way back when were not better, apart from the fact we kids had no Tik-Tok, Snapchat or any other brain-killing forms of entertainment. Instead we had Popeye The Sailor Man, Dennis The Menace, Catweazle (brilliant BTW), Top Cat, Tom and Jerry, The Addams Family (The real thing not Wednesday), plus other classic comic, TV characters to make us laugh, keep us quiet, shut our mouths, and not demand a Smartphone for our 5th birthday!

We also were totally unaware of Stalin and his Communist cohorts who incarcerated half of Europe, US Gi's losing their lives in Vietnam for nothing really (but the music was cool, Paint it Black, and DJ Robin Williams was too, but that was later), Black people in the US and UK, who were treated worse than street dogs, why? Well we all know the answer to that; we had no social-media, and no internet, all we had were real newspapers, tabloids, 2 TV channels, and magazines (some dirty but nice, seeing a naked pair of boobs didn't do us lads any harm). We nippers didn't give a crap about such things, we were too busy kicking tin cans (couldn't afford a real football), chasing the girls, popping into to Woolworths before going to Saturday Morning flicks (Cinema), nicking sweets off the counter, and earning a bob or two flogging newspapers, plus many other kiddies capers. But things were not better, no way, especially for poor kids like myself, we just got on with our lives and didn't give 2 F's about the world surrounding us.

Nowadays kids have access to all the crap going down in the world, one tap on the keyboard of their smart phones and they can learn about Putin bombing The Ukraine, Trump strangulating the global economy with his populist tariffs, trillions of discarded plastic suffocating the planet, wild fires burning us to crisps, multi-million super-star footy players, and their sexy wags, half-naked posing with smartphones in their hands, illegal immigrants invading the US, UK, Europe, and everything else that happens faraway from their streets, and local corner shops (do they still exist?) plus, being mobbed on their phones. All this information, wealth, designer clobber, influencers, Greta Thunberg, certainly makes the present generation much better off and happier than we ever were, or does it not?

I only had one pair of shoes, holes in my trousers, which my mother sowed up because she couldn't afford to buy me a new pair, but I, and other nippers managed to stay happy, because we were not mobbed via our smartphones (What was that? An alien object from Star Trek), and really didn't care about climate change, black smoke fuming out of our chimney pots, asbestos in our houses, and multi-culti Immigrants who swept the streets, smelt, and looked different, worked in low-paid, sometimes awful conditions, and their food certainly smelt and tasted different, garlic, bah!

Are the kids then happier these days when their parents pop off to Primark, or H&M once their clothes are not 'hip' anymore, and they need Nike, Air Jordans, or Adidas at any cost to their parents who mostly bow to their kiddies demands, if they can afford it?

So, let me attempt to put things into PERSPECTIVE!

Compared to today's generations (I'm talking about us normal-human beings, not the rich and famous) the post-war, sixties generations were just as happy with virtually nothing. Modern kids have everything; material goods until they are binned with impunity, hipster clothes, social-media, have access to more global information than anybody really needs, smartphones, and mums and dads fulfilling their every 'need'. Are they happier, more satisfied, and do they live in harmony with their environments? Or, are the demands of keeping up with a world which is racing at high-speed out of control and, losing any contact with the fundamental requirements humans need to survive while it creates generations of craving kids who, maybe, are not quite as satisfied as my mob was?

Answers please (if you have any) to our modern mega-global-social media influencers or just poor old Popeye the Sailor man with his can of spinach / LMBO....

I know who makes me more happy, but then again I'm just a Grumpy Old Bastard!