Was listening to an interview with now-celebrated director, Ron Howard, formally star of both American Graffiti and Happy Days. Both, kids, were made in the early 70s, based on nostalgia for the early 60s! Something, I’m sure, to do with Vietnam; but would we today, I wonder, make a film nostalgic for 2010, the height of the recession and banking crisis? Would we in 2010, have made a film nostalgic for the year 2000, when the dotcom bubble burst and we didn’t even have iphones? Actually, both sound better than 2020. So…one, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock…
Making a difference?
The ’70s were for my coming-of-age time, as they were for Stuart Maconie, author of ‘The Nanny State Made Me’. It’s when I took my 0 and A Levels, went to uni and started my first job. My view of the decade will always be rose-tinted, I’ll remember the music, discos, student grants (wouldn’t have known what a tuition fee was) and monthly inflationary pay rises negotiated by unions of which I was not a member. The strikes, high taxes and IRA bombs were background noise to me and, yes, I was the first in my family to go to university and, yes, despite everything, felt more secure with a nanny state in charge than at any time since. I’d happily pay more tax to give my kids and grandkids the same.
