Why I hate my parents' generation.

john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
They fuck you up, etc.

WARNING: Grotesque generalisations follow.

THE CASE AGAINST

1) When I was gestating in the late 60s, they were all off having free love and great drugs. The economy was bloody great, they had the welfare state on tap.

2) When I was entering my teens in the mid 80s, they'd all settled down and didn't have to worry about AIDs like I did. Instead they all bought their own council houses and got shares in public utilities courtesy of Thatcher.

3) Now I am settling down, they are all retiring early courtesy of big fat pensions. I am faced with spiraling house prices, virtually no council housing and all public services destroyed completely or being carved up by PFI. Everyone my age is working harder and longer, which is taking a toll on our mental health.

4) When they are dead I will still be working. Indeed the way things are currently going I shall have to work until I am about 90 before I can retire.

THE CASE AGAINST ME

Ok, so I didn't lose either of my parents in WWII or get evacuated. And I have lived through this country slowly evolving away from the "stiff upper lip" and other hideous morality judgements. Plus, what follows for the next generation will probably be worse.

TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK: BLEAK
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
I don't think things are that bad for this generation economically, you can live a pretty good lifestyle on an average job if you don't buy a load of useless shit like designer clothes, expensive gadgets, widescreen TVs, consoles, etc...
It's just a case of not getting caught up in all that bullshit. It's different if you are trying to buy a house and raise kids, of course.
I live with mates in a nice area, have a boring but tolerable office job, there's always hedonism if I want a heavy weekend. What's missing now of course is any sense of optimism or hope for the future, but I think the 60s hippies would have a ball on a night out in 2007.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
>1) When I was gestating in the late 60s, they were all off having free love and great
>drugs. The economy was bloody great, they had the welfare state on tap.

they heard stories free love and taking drugs but in actuality, were eating spam whilst sitting round the wireless to keep warm.

>2) When I was entering my teens in the mid 80s, they'd all settled down and didn't have
>to worry about AIDs like I did. Instead they all bought their own council houses and got
>shares in public utilities courtesy of Thatcher.

they were forced to buy their own council houses

>3) Now I am settling down, they are all retiring early courtesy of big fat pensions. I am
>faced with spiraling house prices, virtually no council housing and all public services
>destroyed completely or being carved up by PFI. Everyone my age is working harder
>and longer, which is taking a toll on our mental health.

can you imagine the stress involved in deciding how to spend all the equity?

>4) When they are dead I will still be working. Indeed the way things are currently going I
>shall have to work until I am about 90 before I can retire.

you have the right to work until 90. our parents had to retire at 65.
 
M

martin

----
I'll try and make you feel a bit better about this - I can't really join in as my dad was born in the 1920s, but here goes...


john eden said:
1) When I was gestating in the late 60s, they were all off having free love and great drugs. The economy was bloody great, they had the welfare state on tap.
Are you sure? I've always had the impression the swinging sixties was a bit of a myth...but in any case, did they ever get to take Es while listening to Shut Up & Dance? Or hallucinate that they were psychic transmitters while goths queued up to lick their razor wounds? Or got slaughtered on Buckfast while screaming along to 'Slogun' by SPK? See? You didn't miss that much, taking a tab with some Dutch hippies in Amersham to 'Piper At the Gate of Dawn' while fondling each other on a swirly rug was probably quite shite, in contrast

2) When I was entering my teens in the mid 80s, they'd all settled down and didn't have to worry about AIDs like I did. Instead they all bought their own council houses and got shares in public utilities courtesy of Thatcher.
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OK..actually, this is probably valid. But...they never had any decent riots, did they? Grosvenor Square was hardly on a par with Trafalgar Square in 1990..so, let's continue...

3) Now I am settling down, they are all retiring early courtesy of big fat pensions. I am faced with spiraling house prices, virtually no council housing and all public services destroyed completely or being carved up by PFI. Everyone my age is working harder and longer, which is taking a toll on our mental health.
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Sorry, can't make you feel better here - you're right. And while I can't blame my parents' generation, certainly can the leftie shitbags who ran the GLC back then (I am NOT accusing your parents of being ex-GLC!). House prices in London are disgusting, I'm sick of paying rent and always living with insecurity (having been evicted twice before at short notice - one which me and my flatmates did partially deserve, but the horror of being fucked with nowhere to go is one I won't forget). I'm thinking I'll have to quit London, or else just buy a studio flat above a kebab shop just outside Morden.

Personally, to all you right-on, high-faluting, ex-flower children who've installed most of the East End with your cretinous 'creative' offspring, happy to pay over the odds for flats for your brats just so they can live in what they perceive to be an 'edgy' environment, I hate you all. And before someone sneers, "You're just jealous!", so what if I am?

Plus, what follows for the next generation will probably be worse.
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And sadly, can't contradict this at all, the way things are going. Chatting to my niece and her boyfriend (she's just turned 21), and some of the stuff her friends have been through with trying to get on college courses while being hounded by whatever pathetic replacement they have for YOPS these days, it sounds like little's going to change for the better.
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Chef Napalm

Chef Napalm

Lost in the Supermarket
matt b said:
the commute is probably prohibitive
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That depends how you look at it. The city (small "c"; less that 150,000 people) in which I live there already exists a refinery and two pulp & paper mills, plus all the normal ancilliary services in the central business district. I am part of the team refurbishing the 600MW CANDU reactor for another 25yrs of service ($1,400,000,000CAD project. That's ~£660,000,000). There are also plans to build another reactor (2GW) and another refinery. Frankly, the work force required for such an undertaking does not exist locally. Many eastern Canadians have uprooted to the booming oil-based economy of Alberta. If ever there was a time to imigrate, it's now.

Oh, my commute is 15 minutes every morning and this is the view from my back deck. Excuse the snow (January) and the crappy cell phone pic.
view.jpg
 
mos dan

mos dan

fact music
wow. i might actually move to canada you know.

i'm certainly not buying here ffs.

our housing ladder is a f*ckin rope ladder, and the kid in the treehouse keeps pulling it up whenever anyone tries to climb on.
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
The trick in the UK is to have very little money or absolutely tons of it.

In the middle things get tricky.
 
E

Edward

+
outside, a starling chirps.

THE BLUE FOX RIDES FORTH TOMORROW!
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can we have Wang Pi's commentary on this please?


Seriously tho.... I understand all the things you are moaning about, but this makes you HATE your parents' generation? You hate people for having had it better than you?

Please say it's just that you are envious!

I used to have a friend who would slag people off if they got some money or had some good luck getting a good job or something... I found it really wrong.

Reminds me of that experiment where they put people in pairs and give one of them the choice to either: (a) get £20 and the other guy gets £40 or: (b) get £10 and the other guy gets £5.
Most people chose (b) which says something bad about huan nature innit.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Edward said:
can we have Wang Pi's commentary on this please?


Seriously tho.... I understand all the things you are moaning about, but this makes you HATE your parents' generation? You hate people for having had it better than you?

Please say it's just that you are envious!

I used to have a friend who would slag people off if they got some money or had some good luck getting a good job or something... I found it really wrong.

Reminds me of that experiment where they put people in pairs and give one of them the choice to either: (a) get £20 and the other guy gets £40 or: (b) get £10 and the other guy gets £5.
Most people chose (b) which says something bad about huan nature innit.
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Excellent post. I think it's not really hate, but envy as you say (less of a good title tho).

As usual I think I am mainly angered by people who actually had some control over the situation, such as those who flogged of the UK's family silver for the sake of some votes, and those who clamped down on unions etc so we actually have worse working conditions now in many ways.

I am quite depressed about a lot of things now and can't really see any way out of the situation in the short term. Things.... as the song goes... are not getting better.
 
Chef Napalm

Chef Napalm

Lost in the Supermarket
turtles said:
lol @ coastal differences. 100K wouldn't even buy you a 400sqft bachelor pad in vancouver. so yes, check local real estate market before moving to canada!
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Good point. I presume you mean 100K POUNDS, not DOLLARS. Things are definitely booming in the west (i.e. Alberta, British Columbia) and real estate properties are scaled to match. I suspect, however, that even Vancouver prices don't compare to London prices.
 
sodiumnightlife

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
I'm not bringing my kids up in Britain. Absolutely no bloody way ever. Canada is nice. I don't know though. More likely to be Europe somewhere i guess.
 
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