The Green Thing

[TC]

Before we moved to the village we did get our first telly - I was either 4 or 5. It could only get BBC. Later we upgraded (second hand of course) to one that could get both channels ..... and it had an oil-filled lens over the screen to make the picture look bigger.

I remember when we got out first colour telly, a 17 inch Pye or something similar. The joy of seeing everything in colour for the first time was amazing. I think it cost my parents about £3 a week to rent (I may be out on the price) but when it packed up about 5 years later they went out and purchased a telly for about £100 which lasted them for years and worked out at a fraction of the price of renting.

As a kid, I had an old black and white telly in my room so I could watch the likes of Sportsnight with David Coleman, and apart from a very dodgy picture, I was always having to adjust the bit of wire that was called an arial just to get a half decent picture, and even then I might be lucky to get a half screen picture.

And then my first pocket transistor radio, late at night under the bedsheets tuning into Radio Luxembourg

Isn't it funny how we look back on our youth through rose tinted glasses? non of the conveniances or gadgets we have now, but I am sure I had far more fun as a kid in the 60's than kids seem to have today. But then we didn't have the nanny state then that we have now.

But then lI also look back at my early motorcycling years in the 70's with fond memories. We did not have the horsepower, the tyres, handling or technology that is common place today, but I still think I had far more fun on the likes of my old CB500/4, GS550, GT380 and CB900 with their bendy frames, poor ground clearance, 90% nylon tyres than I did later in life when the bikes ability far exceeded the ability of the average rider

But maybe we were also a different breed back then?

[flatlander]

And then ..., late at night under the bedsheets

I am sure I had far more fun as a kid in the 60's

But maybe we were also a different breed back then?

Did I read that right???

[D-Rider]

Isn't it funny how we look back on our youth through rose tinted glasses? non of the conveniances or gadgets we have now, but I am sure I had far more fun as a kid in the 60's than kids seem to have today. But then we didn't have the nanny state then that we have now.

I'm not sure the nanny state has been such a great influence. Sure there are silly rules that you can't buy fireworks, paint, glue, basic tools like a knife etc but I think the biggest factor is that parents are too scared to let their kids out to play. Statistically they are in no greater danger than we were but their parents believe they are at risk so they don't let them out .... and were you the kid of more enlightened parents, what would be the point of it as you'd be the only kid out there with no one to play with.
Why do they get the opinion that it's unsafe, well I think it's the all pervasive media. We hear about every serious child related crime in the country whereas our parents heard about the local ones and maybe one or two of the national ones. The press these days build a story and tell things in a way and throw in more volume to sensationalise it. We are hit by more and more sources telling us the same stuff. No wonder people's perception is distorted and no wonder we are damaging our children more by not letting them out to experience things and have fun than any risk they might be exposed to by interacting with each other and their environment.

Rant Over

[TC]

Isn't it funny how we look back on our youth through rose tinted glasses? non of the conveniances or gadgets we have now, but I am sure I had far more fun as a kid in the 60's than kids seem to have today. But then we didn't have the nanny state then that we have now.

I'm not sure the nanny state has been such a great influence. Sure there are silly rules that you can't buy fireworks, paint, glue, basic tools like a knife etc but I think the biggest factor is that parents are too scared to let their kids out to play. Statistically they are in no greater danger than we were but their parents believe they are at risk so they don't let them out .... and were you the kid of more enlightened parents, what would be the point of it as you'd be the only kid out there with no one to play with.
Why do they get the opinion that it's unsafe, well I think it's the all pervasive media. We hear about every serious child related crime in the country whereas our parents heard about the local ones and maybe one or two of the national ones. The press these days build a story and tell things in a way and throw in more volume to sensationalise it. We are hit by more and more sources telling us the same stuff. No wonder people's perception is distorted and no wonder we are damaging our children more by not letting them out to experience things and have fun than any risk they might be exposed to by interacting with each other and their environment.

Rant Over

I don't disagree with you.

But then there is also the argument that back then there was not the media coverage, internet, mobile phones or anything else that allwed people to know what else was happening around the country.

[D-Rider]

Indeed - there's a lot of good in these things, it's just that people have not really understood how they need to adjust themselves to make rational decisions in the light of the deluge of information

[MartDude]

Some years ago, browsing a collection of essays by Frances Brett Young (Halesowen author, early 20th. C.), I came across an item, written, IIRC, ca. 1912, describing the work of the SPCC (precursor of the NSPCC). He wrote that in the previous year, the SPCC had investigated something like 10,000 cases of of what we would now call child abuse and neglect; he also commented on the lack of reporting of such incidents, other than the more sensational ones, as indicative of society's attitude towards children (at that time).

I doubt the problem of crimes against children is significantly worse today, pro rata, given the increase in population since 1912, than it was then. That it seems to have reached epidemic proportions is due to the popular press, as successors to the penny dreadfuls

[BikerGran]

I believe that society's attitude to children has gone too far now - a lot of children are removed from families because of so-called 'poor parenting' and grow up in childrens homes or even worse, in a succession of foster homes with no continuity.

Some of these children might not be very clean, or very well fed, their parents might not be intelligent enough to encourage them with schoolwork or hobbies, they might get a clip round the ear from time to time - but also they may be loved! Which makes up for a lot.

My daughter had a friend who was in a foster home aged about 13, I happened to ask if she got along well with her foster mother (they call them 'foster carers' now) and I thought it was very sad when she replied "She's alright, better than some I've had, but there's no point in getting on too well as they'll just move me on, they've done it so many times"

And so we get another generation unable to make relationships last......

[ligloo]

Xxx

[ligloo]

Sorry, but I'm on me IPad and haven't sussed it all yet! The subject was green? I phoned the council and asked for all the bins....... they told me I couldn't recycle cos I live in the country! Plastic, glass and paper I HAVE to put together here! Just wrong!

[BikerGran]

Yep, same with my daughter!

We get one bin for paper and glass, and the truck comes round and they sort it in the truck - with the engine running! How green is that?

The rest - cardboard and plastic bottles - we have to take to the dump, er sorry, recycling centre, ourselves, using fuel in our individual vehicles - how green is that?

And what do you do if you have no car?

[joecrx]

aahh!! the olden days

[D-Rider]

We have a green bin (well it's a green bin with a brown top - the fully green one is the normal waste ) for garden waste etc ... which they only empty once a fortnight and not at all in the winter. It's not enough to cope with our garden but woe betide you if you think of putting the stuff for that bin in another bin ... or have it so full that the lid won't completely shut.
We've got a green bin with a blue lid for paper, plastic, tins and glass .... but woe betide you if you put the wrong sort of plastic in. Not that anyone knows what is the right sort of plastic. There have been articles in the local press of people's bins not being emptied for the wrong kind of plastic .... although that plastic had the recycling logo on it. Apparently they are not set up to deal with that type.
OK, fair enough .... just take it anyway and when they sort the cans from the papers and bottles and glass, put the wrong plastic in another skip and dispose of it - let's face it, in a big city people are going to get stuff in the wrong bins despite their best intentions - mistakes happen, their process needs to cope with that ... but no, they just won't collect it.
Numpties.

[Samray]

Mother had 3 bins, all different colours with complicated 'allowed' contents, all collected different days of the week.
She also had alzheimers.

[HowardQ]

We've got a Black bin for normal waste, a Green bin for Garden rubbish, (but don't dare put cut fowers in it, even if they came out of your garden? Evidently they must only go in thee Black bnin), a Blue bag for papers and an open blue box for bottles and cans.
Pickups are Black bin once a fortnight and the other lot fortnightly in between.
I live at the bottom of a steep hill right at the end of the culdesac, so my garden is the alternative dumping area.
The rubbish from the general bins gets blown/rolls down, the bottles and cans do the same, especially after somebody has a party and the Blue box is overflowing, the Blue bags just blow down into my garden, along with stray papers and other assorted rubbish, especially on windy days, (I now have a very large collection of blue bags and a number of spare Blue boxes).
I usually leave them all outside my house for a while, in case anybody notices they have lost them, but nobody has ever picked one up.
I tried to get the side of the Council who monitor littering to sue the council resposible for waste disposal, a few years ago, but got the reply that it would not be possible.
I did get the concession of a street sweeper on bin collection day a couple of years ago!
I did send photos and details of what I had collected each week.
The record on alternative waste day was 30 odd bottles and 19 cans, which our lot refused to believe, so I bagged them up and left them outside the service manager's office, just for a .

Anyway what we all need to recognise is that all this stuff will finally get sorted properly when it gets to the sorting office, the village in China, totally surrounded by mountains of black bags, where 5 year old Chinese kids sort the lot out into stuff with any recycling value.
Isn't the western green society wonderfully ......... er ... green?

[BikerGran]

Actually I believe the plastic bottles get exported to China (sea miles?) where they are turned into fleece fabric (using energy?) which is then re-exported to the UK (more sea miles).

How green is that?