General Chat

I am a great fan of the introduction of ball point pens. I used to get in such a mess dipping the pen in the ink well at school and then having to scratch around on the page it what was supposed to be joined up writing. Large blobs of ink accompanying the written words on the page. I still have a calloused middle finger from holding the pen (tho it has worn down with age) and I was very good at breaking the nibs.

We used to play tennis in the middle of the road and now the roads are so busy they have chicanes in them to stop people from driving too fast in residential areas. The only thing we had to get out of the way for were the boys in their homemade go-karts.

So as the saying goes 'we have to take the rough with the smooth.'

N.

quinsgran,
sorry I do not agree with your comment. In Victorian London the city was awash with drug addicts and Opium dens were all across England.

ther is an answer to the Radio and TV stopping converstation.....Turn them off.
We never had or have TV on for meal times and the children could only watch tv when we as parents though it was OK.
Oh yes they lounge about in their own homes watching whatever they wish but of someone arrives unexpectedly they still turn the TV off and actually tend to listen to or make their own music.

Must say I do agree about children not being able to play outside unless there is a lot of supervision and Mums or dads being vigilant, I spent many a haapy hour playing in the street, but then mothers tended not to go to work, people lived in the same place for generations etc.


Some progress is good other not so good , we just have to wait and see.

bye for now, Good night


Bridget

The sad thing about all our knowledge,gadgets etc is that people are not happier for it.

Look at the many people who turn to drugs.
I look back at our simple lives when children could happily play outside .All the games we played only going inside when we were hungry

They said radio stopped conversation.
Then it was Television.
Now its electronic games,internet .

Len and Susan

Very intersting and thought provoking. I am related to Michael Faraday, through my father who was aslo a Faraday so I feel part of this amazing progress.

Len, when I was a child living in the east end of London we still had gas mantles for our lights and I used to see if I could touch the mantle without breaking it...never did though.

My mothers friend was given a council flat, they had just started building these in our area and she initially turned it down because the toilet was indoors and she thought that was "disgusting and will spread germs".

My grandmother lived in a small village in Essex called Fingrinhoe and there not only did we have ouside loos where the waste was collected but also an ouside pump for all our water, we used a treadle sewing machine and a small hand sewing machine for me....We cooked our food in a ranges and in a straw box....now when I look around my home I cannot beleive what is there...

Where will we be next I wonder, what will the futuire bring, who knows...that is the fun of llife,

re the above just in case you trhink I am ancient I am not in my eyes as I am a mere 63, and really enjoying life.
I am also convinced that we have many senses not just five but we have either suoressed them or we have forgotten how to use them, a simple example being the "sixth sense" of knowing something is about to happen, or recognising places you know you haven't been to in this present life but know every street etc.. It happens to me quite frequently but OH thinks I am mad! well just different to others is what he really means!


Bridget

I would be interested to know what 'you' see in the future Len.


I remember many years ago, wondering if the picture I saw on the screen would still be there at the place I last saw it, after switching off the television then coming back hours later. I often wonder if I may have been for-seeing video and recording, as I couldn't understand why it shouldn't be so.

I also feel that our technology should be advancing at a quicker pace and that some things are very old fashioned. I thought that by now we would have roads in the sky with cars that flew/

I envision holographic television/films ( not that I would want to watch a horror film if there was such a thing).


I think, that at some stage or other, a form of telepathy/instinct will be possible, albeit a heightened awareness of psychology of man

Nuts?.of course I am! ( I like to think that I am eccentric, meself ).... doesn't stop me thinking it though:-)))))

We all have the same basic mental kit but each mind develops individually according to its owner's life experience. Lots of things we take for granted would have been unbelievable to our forbears. Even I am able to remember a childhood without radio or TV, micro-wave cookers, mobile phones, electronic calculators, computers or ball-pens and tippex. Tesia and Marconi separately developed the technique of harnessing a small part of electro-magnetic radiation and transmitting it through air and space (and some solids) without wires. Marconi was the first to transmit across an ocean therefore he is best remembered. That was a mere 110 years ago, slightly before my time but I remember my dad's first crystal set which worked (very loosely) on the ability of some metals and crystals being able to collect these radio wave by means of an aerial, a length of wire suspended outside, and connected to the crystal, usually galena (lead sulphide), a crystalline mineral which changed the electro-magnetic radiation waves to sound waves. Would they believe where it would all lead to in just over a century? Actually, many scientist and thinkers have tried to predict the future but their thoughts are now laughable. Think H.G.Wells. Sir James Jeans - maybe 40 years ago he wrote a best seller "The Foreseeable Future" but it was very wide of the mark. It impressed me at the time, though.

So why is it so hard to accept that in another short space of time, maybe only 50 years from now as things are speeding up, the "difficult to believe now" may be commonplace in 2057 ? We have been brain-washed by our culture and believe our cosy little cardboard boxes into which we were born to be the total extent of the universe. Why not lift the lid and peek out? The most common answer, apart from an innate fear of the unknown, is the fear artificially imposed by organized sectarian religion. Then there are the Joe Soaps whose rationale steadfastly refuses to admit to any other than what than what their "five" senses are allowed to perceive by their censor brain - sorry, parameters. Mind you, there are things of which we should be fearful - and fore-armed.