As I do most months, I met my good mate Keith for a pub crawl and a curry on Tuesday. We decided to go for a sojourn around the East End and around what used to be the London Docks. The second pub we went to was a real, old style London boozer, the Turners Old Star. When I first started drinking in pubs in the 1970's, jut about every pub was like this. The pub was the heart of Britain. Now a proper pub is rare enough to warrant a mention in a blog. Pubs like this used to be the heart of communities, but that heart has been ripped out. It is just one example of how, in my lifetime the UK has thrown away a world beating position. As I got the train back, I started to make a list of all of the things that this country has neglected and let whither on vine in my lifetime. If you look at the keyboard warriors on X etc, you'd think that the malaise that is destroying Great Britain is a new thing. Sadly the truth is that we used to be the greatest nation on the planet, now we are a joke, grovelling to deranged US presidents in the hope that they will spare us their wrath. I don't normally use this feature to rant and I didn't intend using this blog to, but as I wrote it, I simply couldn't help myself. Here's a bit of nostalgia that harks back to the days when not everything had been completely screwed up yet
The list is scandalous and shows just how bad both Tory and Labour governments have been
1. Rocket Technology - When I was born in 1962, The UK was one of the worlds leading powers in rocket design. We were developing sophisticated rockets for both military and civilian use. Programs such as the Black Arrow and The Blue Streak system were amongst the most advanced. in the world. Ted Heath's Tory government cancelled Black Arrow in 1971. Wikipedia notes "Prior to the cancellation of Black Arrow, NASA had offered to launch British payloads for free; however, this offer was withdrawn following the decision to cancel Black Arrow."Not the first or the last time we've been shafted by our 'greatest ally'. We are now in the situation where if Putin launched a nuclear strike on the UK, Donald Trump could veto us launching a retaliation. Why? Because Ted Heath decided that our 'greatest allies' would never change their foreign policies.
2. Funny Sitcoms. On Tuesday, when I got back from the pub crawl and the football on TV finished, I was channel hopping. There was a documentary about The Good Life. It wasn't one of my favourite shows, but the documentary was brilliant. I was reminded just how funny Penelope Keith, Paul Eddington, Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall were. How many brilliant sitcoms were there? Porridge, Rising Damp, Dads Army, Are you being Served, Fawlty Towers to name a few. Sure, there were some terrible clunkers, but it was a golden age. A quick trawl through the list of modern ones is pretty stark. Friday night dinner stands out, perhaps the only one which would make a top 20. I genuinely don't think that what is funny has changed. I think that the people who commission light entertainment simply have taken their eye off the ball and are too busy trying to make political points (good and bad) to actually do their day job and make us laugh. The idiots in charge of the BBC have put the corporation in a position, where people resent paying the license fee. Would people be so fed up with the BBC if they actually made decent TV rather than preachy rubbish?
3. Railways. Where to start. The UK more or less invented the concept of railways, and they propelled us into the Industrial Revolution. Following WWII our railways were nationalised and then steadily starved of investment. In the 1960's both Conservative and Labour governments oversaw the closure of many useful routes under the Beeching cost saving scheme. Whereas the Japanese and French both invested heavily in high speed rail, in the UK, motorways and cars were seen as the way forward. British Rail maintained an innovative technical team until privatisation under the Tories in the 1990's. This was broken up and all of the technical innovation we see on the railways in the UK is based on non UK designs. Our railways are expensive, overcrowded and unreliable. Even worse, they now exist to line the pockets of foreign companies that are nationalised entities, such as RATP.
4. Car design. In the 1960's, the UK was awash with innovative car companies. Our car designs were seen as innovative and exciting. Brands such as Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Aston Martin were seen as the best of sports car design. As for small cars, Morris Minors and Mini's lead the way in economical family cars. Sadly, the British companies didn't invest, didn't update their quality control and now all UK car production of note is controlled by foreign owners. Sadly the powers that be in the UK threw away our manufacturing industries, laying whole communities to waste. When did this happen? Under the darling of the right, Margaret Thatcher.
5. Good manners. The British were well known for their politeness, good manners and stoic attitude. It was seen as bad form to push in, if there was a queue. People spent their lives apologising to each other. Old Ladies would tell off other people's children in the street when they were naughty. If such a thing happened today, social services and the police would be called. When the bus arrives it is a free for all and no one apologises, even when they know they are wrong. The truth has been replaced with 'my truth' where 'I can do no wrong'. And where did it go wrong? I blame Thatcherism and the mantra that greed is good, you barge your way to the front of the queue and sod everyone else. Harry Enfield invented a charmless character called "LoadsofMoney" and we all now live in his world.
6. Working mens cafe's. When I started work, you'd nip down the cafe for a cuppa and a bacon Sandwich. The cafe's would have dirty paintwork, formica tables, chipped cups and greasy spoons. They were cheap and cheerful. You judged a good cafe by the size of it portions. I can't recall the last time I went into a proper cafe, where the dustmen read their tabloid papers, picked their horses and drank tea. I miss that. Sadly, Tory and Labour governments have made it almost impossible for faamily run small cafe's to thrive. Whilst Sid's cafe has to pay all his taxes, the big multinational chains, you know who I mean, can repatriate all of their profits off shore. Thatcherism saw the demise of long tea breaks and lunches. A sandwich at your desk, whilst you worked was the mantra of the 1980's and it seems that killed the cafe. Small family businesses get no help and no support.
7. Community Pubs. I mentioned this above. This is also squarely down to Margaret Thatcher, who viewed brewery owned pubs as an unfair monopoly. The purpose of pubs was to sell beer for breweries. Pubs were largely male enclaves, where working men drank warm beer and told bad jokes. Snobs like Thatcher hated such places and saw them as hotbeds of communism. She broke up the brewery monopoly and believed that pubs would become more middle class. The pubco's got their greedy hands on them, and soon realised that a closed pub, which can be sold for redevelopment is far more lucrative than an open one selling beer. The only pubs that seem to thrive are not pubs at all, they are Gastro pubs, selling overpriced food and drink, which is usually rather bland and dull. The idea that a pub might thrive just selling beer seems like a throwback to the age of the dinosaurs.
8. Punk Rock. Between 1976 and 1982, the UK music scene was set free from the shackles of large label hegemony by the punk rock explosion and the advent of independent labels. Music venues thrived, we all had a blast, then the industry regained control and strangled it. There are still great bands and great music being made, but the industry has worked very hard to ensure that never again, will they lose control. I believe the government colluded as they knew that angry teenagers were potentially a threat to their power. Sadly, my generation, the punk generation are the worst. All of the decent people started bands, the greedy buggers took power, whilst we were enjoyin g ourselves. That is why I dislike the Boris Johnsons of this world so much. They stole our dreams and ruined it for our kids. The last thing both the Labour and Tories wanted was snotty kids asking why they were so useless.
9. Music Television. Top of the Pops, Supersonic, The Old Grey Whistle test, the Tube, Marc. If you don't know what they are, google them. There was a time when families watched music shows together. We'd all compare notes. Top of The Pops was the gold standard of British Music Television, which is why repeats are shown all of the time. The fools who ran the BBC at the time, did not understand the value in the brand and cancelled it. The sole decent mass media TV show is Jools. It gives artists a chance to play to a new audience. If I ever got my hands on the levers of power, TOTP would be the first thing I brought back. When it was cancelled, it needed a bit of an overhaul, not scrapping. I love the BBC but I must concede it is run by blithering idiots. It only really occurred to me recently that it quite suits the establishment and the powers that be, if our national Broadcaster is controlled by malleable idiots.
10. Local Radio. As I said about TV, the BBC is run by blithering idiots. Nowhere more so than in local radio. Anyone who has followed this blog, will know my views on the way the BBC Bosses have run BBC Radio, especially BBC Radio London. I spent my life loving BBC Radio London in it's various guises. Sadly, the idiots in charge do not understand that the station is not LBC. They have pushed all of the quirky, interesting presenters to the margins. They have instituted a playlist which has completely alienated the younger audience. There was a time when younger listeners would avidly listen to presenters such as Garry Crowley to hear the latest upcoming bands. Sadly, such content has been pushed to the margins, at times when active young people don't listen. Presenters with their ear to the ground musically, such as Robert Elms have had their hours cut and moved to less popular times. Good current affairs presenters such as Eddie Nestor have been given briefs that don't fit their style. I persist out of stubbornness, but it seems that not a day goes by without my kids moaning "why are we listening to this" as yet another boring topic is covered or the playlist selects some unlistenable rubbish.
I have a fantasy that I live in a parallel world. I am in a pub, drinking warm beer, watching decent a British sitcom, based on a modern British Rail Branch Railway line, that I heard about on a Monday morning on the Robert Elms show on BBC Radio London, The people are funny, but have good manners and there is much banter about the latest bands on Top of The Pops, and whether the new generation of Punk Rockers are as good as the Pistols. I've had a bacon sarnie at the cafe next door and the show is on a satellite channel, where the satellite is a British Satellite launched on a Blue Streak rocket. The likes of Nigel Farage blame it all on immigrants. Sadly, he is wrong. The reason the country is in the state it is in, is because the British Establishment threw it all away. Don't blame migrants, the EU or Donald Trump. The sad truth is that it is our own ruling class that have mucked this country up.
