Lately, the internet and MSM seems awash with lists of things that have changed, and how they have changed…
I could compare myself to my own dad at various equal ages and compile one, or talk about things that were normal as a boy growing up in the sixties that are unheard of now, but, it’s all more than a bit deceiving.
There is nothing new in the sexualisation of 12 year old girls, or indeed pre-pubescent girl’s playing with themselves, what has changes is that until relatively recently historically speaking 12 year old girls could get married in the UK… I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which is the greater deterrent, 4 years in chokey or a marriage to a child bride… it doesn’t deter the muslims in our midst though, so I have no idea why the Daily Fail felt the need to go all the way to Australia to report on such vile sick perverted predatory paedo behaviour, when you can find it here at home in Bradford and Leeds and Birmingham and London…
One thing that definitely has changed is teachers, the mum of a (female) head teacher of two local schools lives next to a rellie of mine, so there is a fair bit of interaction there.
Nowadays it seems every new school term much less school year is an entirely new world tour of a band, or franchise of a PC game, or series of a TV show, it’s all got to be new and fresh.
Back when I was a kid the dreaded French lessons in secondary school commenced with you being handed a copy of Dondo, the reference book it was taught from, it wasn’t a new book, because it wasn’t a new course, like the words themselves it was all handed down, Je Suis, Tu Est, Nous Sommes etc… in fact if you’d suggested that any teacher in the 60’s or 70’s spent the holidays preparing entirely new courses for the new year’s induction of pupils, you’d have been looked at closely, as a foreigner or some other sort of wierdo.
First year maths and first year french and first year geography and first year physics were all the same, whether you started in 1971 or 1972, or 1973 etc etc etc, 2 + 2 still made 4, Je Suis still meant I am, the amazon river basin was still in the same place, and Newton’s first law of motion still held true.
And the subjects themselves held enough material that year after year after year the Oxford and Cambridge examining boards could ask completely different questions year after year, all aimed at assessing your basic understanding of said subject.
I didn’t hang out with teachers after school but in later academic years I discovered that for most of them term time was a job like going off to work on the north sea oil rigs, and it funded the 3 weeks christmas and 3 weeks easter and 6 weeks summer breaks, when they indulged their hobbies, hobbies that often had nothing whatsoever to do with their teaching, we had an english lit teacher who used to spend every summer holiday walking around Tuscany, I later learned he spent the first 4 weeks walking around various tavernas getting totally shitfaced, and the last two weeks walking around detoxing, utterly unbelievable compared to the in class persona…
Then you started discovering things, the skinny little nun who taught religion could speak fluent german (to the point where she could adopt regional accents at will) and was also a qualified nurse, things that apparently came from a previous life before she took orders and joined a convent.
I was reminded of this this week, I met with a guy I know, we’ll call him steve, to look at him you’d think steve knew all about eating pies, and not a lot else, but old steve actually knows quite a bit, and is very dextrous, works in manufacturing as a manager who still maintains his hands on skills, one thing you would not thing steve would know anything at all about was gasket material, so I’m talking about a gasket cutting job and he just reels off klingersil and novus, two big brands, and starts talking about the relative merits of each… and he is spot on.
Of course all this sort of follows on from yesterdays post, people used to be far far more rounded… my dad was a time served engineer so imagine my surprise as a not so small boy in my teens to discover that he’d really wanted to be a chef, which did explain how he could cook anything, he just never did.
Again never in my life did I see an outside contractor come into our house, he did it all himself, no fuss, no bother.
Got a customer who makes Pietra Dura, I cut the templates for him in acrylic, look at him and listen to the farmer accent and you’d think he was capable of shovelling shit and not much else, visited him last week and was treated to a ten minute crash course on lapis lazuli (from afghanistan, 6 quid an ounce) bastard could have lectured on that one stone alone for six hours and never repeated himself once nor been boring once.
“Never judge a book by it’s cover” used to be ever so true.
nowadays, not so much, in fact nowadays there is so little depth to people that all the inner pages have vanished, all that’s left is the cover, with all the variety and wonder of yesterday’s beer mats.
Most telling of all is the list of ten things, ask anyone today, especially the youth of today, to write down a list of ten things about their favourite subject, and then discuss each for 3 minutes, and you’ll be treated to a horror show.
BTW I’m not ignoring the Manchester suicide bombing, I just don’t see the point in saying anything.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnddd it’s an allahu ackbar .. it’s become as commonplace and expected as an IRA bombing in the seventies, but in the seventies at least kids in schools were allowed to tell jokes about pass the parcel in an irish pub and take this piss out of paddy mcginty in case his school PE kit blew up… god help anyone else who tried to take this piss out of paddy field though, he was *our* irish git, we only needed two more to make a thicket… >;*) now put three spades against the wall and take your pick.