Things were better in my day

[Lex]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be and all that. I think one of the reasons we think music, tv and films from yesteryear was better is that you only remember the good stuff and its only the best content from the era that is still played or shown with any regularity now. There was plenty of guff stuff produced in the 70's or 80's, it's not remembered cause you never hear it or see it anywhere now. 

One thing that's definitely better now is football. Pre pass back rule football was absolutely brutal. Watched a rerun of Germany Denmark in Euro 92 final recently, absolutely terrible stuff. Pass back to Schmeichel, pick up, pass to other defender, pass back, pick up. Can't believe it took so long for that nonsense to be finally outlawed. 

 

 

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, velo army said:

Related to information access perhaps, but health and wellbeing were infinitely worse for adults when I was younger. Every third person smoked and there was a machismo and working class pride attached to eating absolute shite.  Drinking alcohol to excess was celebrated even more than it is now. 

Nowadays I can hardly move for people my age (40) and above who cycle, play 5's, do yoga, run or otherwise exercise. Barely anyone smokes. 

 

3 hours ago, Bonksy+HisChristianParade said:

I find that interesting. I know it’s not the only indicator of health, but I can only imagine BMIs have risen considerably over the same time period. 

There has definitely been an increase in gym attendance, however there has also been a considerable reduction in participation in certain team sports like football (e.g. the Perthshire amateur leagues have shrunk by about half from when my old man played). Perhaps mirroring our move towards a more individualistic society focussed on image?
 

 

 

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

Food and drink, especially coffee, is much better now. 

Football is worse. 

 

1 hour ago, engelbert_humperdink said:

Yet we are more obese as a nation than ever

Let’s tie all that together, in that the food may be “better”, with regard to flavors and variety, but it is almost certainly worse with regards to processing and additives. It’s too easy to make unhealthy choices that masquerade as healthy eating these days, and portion sizes have skyrocketed.

Let’s look at U.S. McDonalds, since it’s got a solid history and there is useful data…and we’ll use their serving size of French fries. In 1959, McDonlads offered one size of fries, a 2.4oz portion. These days a “small” fry is 2.6oz, and a “large” is 5.9oz.

https://prettysweet.com/mcdonalds-portion-sizes/

[Paranoid]

Not sure football in Scotland is better. In fact it's s*** !!

[tamthebam]

1 hour ago, johnnydun said:

Crowd wanking has got stronger whilst actual crowds have been in decline.

You'd think the polis would spot it easier now crowds have thinned out.

[mathematics]

Irn Bru has taken a turn for the worse, allegedly.

[supermik]

Back in my day, we had Wonder Woman. Kids today now Wonder if it is a Woman

[TxRover]

5 minutes ago, supermik said:

Back in my day, we had Wonder Woman. Kids today now Wonder if it is a Woman

[Shotgun]

Today's ease of access to music is something I would've loved when I was younger.

Radio 1,  (pop) was on Medium Wave, as were Radios Luxembourg and Caroline.  The MW signal where I lived was almost non-existant, so they were out. That left the FM stations of Radio 2 (easy listening - my Dad's station of choice) or classical music on Radio 3 and talk on Radio 4. TV gave us Top of the Pops on Thursday, and on the very rare occasions when I was up after my parents, The Old Grey Whistle Test. New Musical Express, which we bought when we were being all pretentious and wanky, was filled with news about bands we'd never heard of. The 1 (one) record shop in my town was staffed by a bored munter barely out of school who knew nothing about music and didn't like teenage boys asking questions about it.

And that was it.

Buying an LP was incredibly stressful. Most of the time, I only knew the name of a band because older boys had scratched the name onto school desks*. An LP cost 2 weeks wages from the milk round. What if I didn't like it? Oh, to be able to pull up something like YouTube or Spotify to check out an artist or band first. And then to look at Wikipedia to learn the history behind the song, or to go on a forum to discuss it with other fans. Heaven.

 

* The first album I bought using this review method was Pink Floyd's "Wish you Were Here", when I was 13. It's still one of my favourites.

[Oystercatcher]

13 hours ago, engelbert_humperdink said:

Yet we are more obese as a nation than ever

My friend works for the office for national statistics, they were telling me that 1 in 3 children in Scotland are obese. That's an utterly shameful statistic.

[hk blues]

12 hours ago, Lex said:

Watched a rerun of Germany Denmark in Euro 92 final recently, absolutely terrible stuff. Pass back to Schmeichel, pick up, pass to other defender, pass back, pick up. 

Just one question - why would you watch that? 

[GAD]

4 hours ago, Shotgun said:

Today's ease of access to music is something I would've loved when I was younger.

Radio 1,  (pop) was on Medium Wave, as were Radios Luxembourg and Caroline.  The MW signal where I lived was almost non-existant, so they were out. That left the FM stations of Radio 2 (easy listening - my Dad's station of choice) or classical music on Radio 3 and talk on Radio 4. TV gave us Top of the Pops on Thursday, and on the very rare occasions when I was up after my parents, The Old Grey Whistle Test. New Musical Express, which we bought when we were being all pretentious and wanky, was filled with news about bands we'd never heard of. The 1 (one) record shop in my town was staffed by a bored munter barely out of school who knew nothing about music and didn't like teenage boys asking questions about it.

And that was it.

Buying an LP was incredibly stressful. Most of the time, I only knew the name of a band because older boys had scratched the name onto school desks*. An LP cost 2 weeks wages from the milk round. What if I didn't like it? Oh, to be able to pull up something like YouTube or Spotify to check out an artist or band first. And then to look at Wikipedia to learn the history behind the song, or to go on a forum to discuss it with other fans. Heaven.

 

* The first album I bought using this review method was Pink Floyd's "Wish you Were Here", when I was 13. It's still one of my favourites.

Yeah, I always feel when I was younger that stuff was expensive but doing things was much cheaper and I always think of music as a classic example. Bands used to go on tour to help sell records, now they pretty much give the music away to sell very expensive gig tickets. I found a couple of old tickets recently, Sonic Youth 2004 was £14, Bloc Party 2005 at King Tuts £6. A CD of their latest album would have been £10-15 then at least.

[Dons_1988]

Standard of football at the elite level is better, being a football fan is undoubtedly much shitter. 

[Oystercatcher]

28 minutes ago, GAD said:

Yeah, I always feel when I was younger that stuff was expensive but doing things was much cheaper and I always think of music as a classic example. Bands used to go on tour to help sell records, now they pretty much give the music away to sell very expensive gig tickets. I found a couple of old tickets recently, Sonic Youth 2004 was £14, Bloc Party 2005 at King Tuts £6. A CD of their latest album would have been £10-15 then at least.

I seen Metallica in 1990 it was £10

Faith no more 1990 £7.50

 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

Standard of football at the elite level is better, being a football fan is undoubtedly much shitter. 

Definitely, watching old football matches, any game from any league pre say 1995 or whatever, the amount of unforced errors compared to now is staggering especially defensively. Some of the goals scored in the 1970s from Liverpool Leeds etc would look like comical errors in modern day Scottish league 1. 6 players standing baw watching as a cross comes in, 1 unmarked forward toe pokes it past a keeper rooted to the spot with the defenders blocking his view.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

I hardly think the 92 Euro final is a measure of anything from that era. 

[Fullerene]

17 hours ago, velo army said:

Related to information access perhaps, but health and wellbeing were infinitely worse for adults when I was younger. Every third person smoked and there was a machismo and working class pride attached to eating absolute shite.  Drinking alcohol to excess was celebrated even more than it is now. 

Nowadays I can hardly move for people my age (40) and above who cycle, play 5's, do yoga, run or otherwise exercise. Barely anyone smokes. 

I have said it before.  If you sat on a park bench smoking a cigarette, people thought you were cool.  If you did the same thing without a cigarette, people thought you were weird.  Nowadays you can sit on a park bench looking at your phone and there is no need to have a cigarette as well.

[Fullerene]

Years ago, in Inverness, they use to throw the park benches in the river, rip side mirrors off parked cars and smash any Christmas lights that they could reach.

Oh, the good old days.

Now I am older and wiser.

Thankfully that does not happen so much now.

[jamamafegan]

Better: communication and navigation. We are able to chat to people on the other side of the world at the push of a button like it's nothing at all. My dad was telling me recently that when he lived in Canada in the late 80s, he spoke to his friends by phoning his local on a Saturday night in the assumption that they would be there - which they were. Navigation is also much better and is taken for granted. I was trying to get somewhere recently using IOS maps and remarked "it must have been a nightmare for folk trying to find places 30 years ago, having to stop by the side of a road and get a paper map out, using written down instructions and the like."

Smoking ban in public places, particularly restaurants. I remember eating at the Filling Station when I was a kid and it was disgusting breathing in the smoke while trying to enjoy my pizza and pasta buffet.

Worse: the pub and club scene is terrible now as people switch going out to boozers for boozing at home. I've seen footage of Perth nightlife in the early 2000s and it looked class, loads of bars which were packed and a good laugh. It's how you made friends and met women. Now everybody uses dating apps because (IMO) it's more difficult to meet people in real life. The apps have their perks but ultimately they are shallow and it takes a bit of the magic away.

Agree with others that football is worse in almost every department. Only 15 years ago it was a much better laugh for the fans.

[MEADOWXI]

The homegenisation of towns and cities is sad.

Every town/city is now first/stagecoach buses in the same colours,

not the Glasgow white/green/orange, Ayrshire had AA in green and A1 in blue and the different areas had Lothian, Eastern, Tayside, Northern, Clydesdale etc all in own colours.

Every main street now is a walk past Greggs, McDs, Primark, Starbucks and identically boring

Every cinema is an identical Vue or Cineworld

Used to see a city or town and it looked unique,

Everywhere becoming boringly identical.

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 hours ago, Oystercatcher said:

My friend works for the office for national statistics, they were telling me that 1 in 3 children in Scotland are obese. That's an utterly shameful statistic.

This will have an impact on their capacity to run away from the increased number of paedophiles.