ALSO -The Last Furlong Blog and Life on an alien planet.wordpress

Monday 31 December 2012

Nocebo of grisly graphics on cigarette packs (again!)

My last two posts (and some before) have been about the criminality of putting grotesque plain packaging images into the minds of smokers (and non smokers) repeatedly so that they burrow their way into our consciousnesses to become exactly the thing we see.

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” Buddha

We know about this in Modern Medicine

Nocebo

It's a pity that statistics on smokers are so twisted and a lot of them are "estimates" aka guessing. It would be interesting to know is cancer rates in smokers had risen since the introduction of criminal images on cigarette packs.  Cancer in non smokers too - those who have to see them. And those who are caught in the deadly waves of second hand smoke found in parks and open spaces. But we'll never know

But I'm not the only one who is appalled by the thoughtlessness of Tobacco Control tactics.

Placebo/Nocebo and the anti-smoking campaign

Is the nocebo effect killing our smokers?

Saturday 29 December 2012

Basically bullshit because smoking does not always kill

Yesterday I wrote The Gruesome Graphic

I woke up in the night wondering what "fifteen cigarettes" meant. Fifteen a day? Fifteen in a life?

"The ads will tell smokers that just 15 cigarettes can cause a mutation that leads to cancerous tumours in what marks a return to shock campaigning."

The video actually says WILL - WILL cause mutations.

 "People will see a man smoking and then a cancer growing out of the cigarette. That is what happens in people's bodies."

No wonder such an ad can be so easily dismissed from the sensible mind  - "More than a third of smokers still believe the health risks from smoking are greatly exaggerated, recent statistics from the Department of Health showed"

And no wonder - this is basically bullshit.  15 a day? for 20 years? for 30 years? for 50 years? Or simply 15 cigarettes?

In the BBC interview it was scientists who could tell this 15 cigarettes (15 a day? for 20 years? for 30 years? for 50 years? Or simply 15 cigarettes?) causing mutations by what they saw in a petrie dish.

 "People will see a man smoking and then a cancer growing out of the cigarette. That is what happens in people's bodies."

This is not what happens in people's bodies. It's what happens in the ad.

In people's bodies it is far more complex, they are not petrie dishes. At least half or more of all smokers can hit old age totally fit and well. Why is that?

Trouble is, we don't know why. And that's the reason that shock ads like the tumour growing cigarette seem like lies.They are simply not true - and can never be until we know why smoking doesn't always kill.



Friday 28 December 2012

The Gruesome Graphic

This seems to be a time of the gruesome graphic. Once we had censorship which ruled what was acceptable and what not. Censorship was a government function to protect citizens from truly repulsive/upsetting images and movies.

Now it's all changed around. It's a government function to impose on all its citizens gruesome graphics especially selected for their gruesomeness to actively repulse and horrify.

Eight years ago the fatty advert " left an indelible imprint on many smokers' memories, so that every time they pick up a cigarette, they think of our advert and remember the damage that cigarette can do to their arteries."

 I have been banging on about the fact that this is a criminal action. Gruesome graphics are subliminal messages. self fulfilling prophecies and someone wealthy should sue the perpetrators of this.
 
For 2013 smokers minds will be mind-fucked by a tumour growing cigarette.
 

Thursday 27 December 2012

The Extreme Scream

Being Christmas, I have been watching TV programs I normally wouldn't. I wonder why winners have to resort to extreme screaming when they win something? Is it the same reason I suggested in my post The Audible Orgasm? As voyeur participants now on TV and videos that we watch, extreme chimp-like screaming is a way to indicate to the audience that the winners are happy?

Sad really. 


Saturday 22 December 2012

The Audible Orgasm

I have been wondering about the history of the audible orgasm. I have pondered for a long time, on how folks in crowded houses, in hovels or hostelries of yore managed to put up with all the  "Oooooh's 'n Ahhhh's Oooooh's and  Ahhhh's" loudly yelled during female orgasm. Maybe women were once quieter?

I have decided that this current audible orgasm practise must be a dramatic recent addition to sex - an artifact of the modern age, possibly from the porn/movie/video industry. How do you actually show, when you act sex out, that anything is happening as a woman? Well, you yell and shriek. It becomes a modern human behaviour by mimic, easy to fake.

Perhaps I am wrong because "hysterical paroxysm" was the term used in Victorian times for raucous orgasm. Freud studied it "scientifically" so it could be said by our learned elite that something like that existed. Did they not know that women orgasmed? Did they do it silently, or not at all?  "Hysterical paroxysm" was not the norm.

Women have orgasmed for 100 000 years and more. Did they all make such a dreadful din? Or have we had to invent the audible orgasm because we, as voyeurs, need to be reassured that something real is happening?


Friday 21 December 2012

30 a day and oodles of booze

My daughter just left after popping in with her two year old after a visit to the midwife. She tells me her iron is low with a knock on that her blood pressure is low too. She is pregnant again with her second baby. I know what this is like - we've been there before. No wine. No cheese. No this. No that. I can't remember it all now, but I know it just made me feel totally irritated.

So, at the door as she left, this little scene  unfolded.

Mother: "Get some liver, you like liver - that's good for anemia (iron deficiency). Eat liver"
Daughter: " Not allowed to eat liver."
Mother: "Why?"
Daughter: "Too much vitamin A."
Mother:  "Oh."

Now this same daughter has a Spanish friend who is also pregnant who's mother makes sure she eats liver once a week and has a glass of wine every night.  And she does. I wonder what difference we will find between the two babies when they are born.

This same daughter is physically perfect - facial structure, teeth, hair and is Mensa with a massive IQ , academic skills and qualifications and a clever artist.

I looked at her standing in my doorway and just felt powerless at the extent new mothers are brainwashed by all the "scientific" codswallop they have to endure as if being pregnant is a medical illness and the fact she said "I'm not ALLOWED"

I gave her a hug and told her "Well I didn't do too badly with you on 30 cigarettes a day and half a bottle of cane spirits (like Vodka) with coca-cola every night. And I ate anything I wanted."

But I've told her that before......

Thursday 20 December 2012

Grotesque rogues gallery pictures on cigarette packages need scientific support, otherwise they are simply unproved anecdotes - aka - lies.

 I have just read:-The Story of Brian aged 34

I listened to Journalist Sue Landry speaks with Nick McCallum too.  (Find the broadcast under the pictures of Brian) This is not science - this is anecdote! I will not believe this is true until Brian's medical files are released to the public. Until then, I will take this as an unproved anecdote touted as true by a lying Tobacco Control.

Brian looks as if he is a chemotherapy victim to me.

My father-in-law died of lung cancer at the same time someone else I know's father-in-law died of lung cancer. We compared notes. Neither father's-in-law were treated with chemotherapy or radiation therapy. They were old men. They did NOT look like Brian! In fact it was hard to really see anything much about their illness on the outside. My father-in-law had never been to a doctor. He chain smoked all his life and drank like a fish. He could be totally charming or absolutely evil. He suddenly developed a sore chest and was taken to hospital. He only then stopped smoking (and drinking). He died within a week. He was still flirting with the nurses and asking for more jelly the day before he died, silly old bugger. My friends father-in-law's death was about as undramatic too.

I would like the medical notes on each patient in the grotesque rogues gallery on the packaging of cigarettes - now to be 75% of each packet according to the EU proposed legislation (making plain packaging really unnecessary) - to be published on the Internet so that we can see them. Otherwise, every one of their self fulfilling subliminal and criminal pictures are unscientific anecdotes and probably lies.




Wednesday 19 December 2012

Citizen Control

We already endure the "sculpture" of society through the Media, and Government. No wonder there are so many conspiracy theories suspicious of a reality that is faked, slanted, twisted, manipulated and corrupt - because faked, slanted, twisted, manipulated and corrupt is true. How to tell what is true and to what extent and what is not is a problem for those that think.

I wanted to see what was trending on Twitter Worldwide and I discovered my offered Tweets from others on Twitter had been "tailored" for me. What a cheek! Why should I always want to see Tweets "tailored" for ME? I want to see the new and fresh stuff, not marinate myself in something similer to me! So the tweets "tailored" for me are not the true reflection of tweeting on twitter. They are a lie made just for me!

I follow Blogs by people who are of like mind. It is very easy to feel our kind of mind is the ONLY way to think. That same effect happens to everyone in society who is bolstered in their thinking by others of like mind. The trick is to get away from the like-minded sometimes and think with a different brain. Thinking "To whom is this thought beneficial?. Who is it bolstering? Should I believe this as true? " is a good way of sorting out the chaff from the seeds - even the chaff in my own thoughts.

I believe a lot of things just because I WANT them to be true, because I don't like what I see in the weird world around me. I believe that gradually, more and more people will become aware of the dross, the manipulation, the consumerism, the fake and the lies that form our society. I have to believe that, otherwise I have no hope for the future. I believe this major "enlightenment" could start to happen before I die.

Maybe I'm kidding myself? 




Tuesday 18 December 2012

What has happened to the MONEY between the time they knew they were in the shit to the time when the shit hit the fan?

In the UK, Comet. an electrical retailer, is being PAID BY US to go insolvent - the Government is legally obliged to step in and pay redundancy payments.

That's us - our money - our earnings that are skimmed off from us in every way conceivably possible.

Trouble is that when you read the Comet "story" something smells about it - no actually it STINKS! There should be some kind of investigation as to how they can't pay their OWN workers' redundancies. And they can't pay their owed tax either. At what point should they have morally closed down? What has happened to the MONEY between the time they knew they were in the shit to the time when the shit hit the fan?






Monday 17 December 2012

Caution in trashing the 21st December 2012

I see a lot of chatter on the Internet from Scientists trashing the Mayan Calender end of an Era predictions as codswallop, bullshit and other scornful labels. They are as stupid as those who believe there will be an ACTUAL ending of the world in some horrific way. They are stupid and thoughtless in trashing culture and tradition over which they have little understanding and which is not theirs. And which is an IDEA rather than a THING.

Wiki 2012 Phenomenon

"Unlike the 260-day tzolk'in still used today among the Maya, the Long Count was linear rather than cyclical, and kept time roughly in units of 20: 20 days made a uinal, 18 uinals (360 days) made a tun, 20 tuns made a k'atun, and 20 k'atuns (144,000 days or roughly 394 years) made up a b'ak'tun. Thus, the Mayan date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents 8 b'ak'tuns, 3 k'atuns, 2 tuns, 10 uinals and 15 days" (the end of one cycle of many, and the beginning of a new one)

This is a wonderful idea - we could take advantage of it, instead of trashing it.

 "There is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012", said Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone."

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle"

So I hope that we will be beginning a new world cycle and hopefully, one day, we can celebrate getting to the end of THAT one too!

Roll on 21,12,2012 - we need a new chance to improve things....


Before I could hit the Publish button I found this excellent good read article published in the Guardian.

Sunday 16 December 2012

Last nights testosterviolenceporn

Oh God - "The Expendables"! with The Expendables 2 now avaliable

And you can get the video games too!

Negative reviews of The Expendables (number one)  -"sadistic mess of a movie" and "the brain-dead male equivalent of Sex and the City 2"

This is exactly the mindless testosterrevengeporn that I hate in movies nowadays.

Speechless really.

This is entertainment in our modern "advanced" pointless civilisation?

At least the girl really was beautiful, feminine, shapely and not a he-girl. Thank God for small mercies - and thank God the movie is now over!

My husband enjoyed it  - he didn't go to sleep in his chair like he does most nights. There must be something wrong with him.

I always feel uncomfortable with over-the-top testosterviolenceporn, no matter how lighthearted it is supposed to be, in case someone out there (like young, impressionable school shooters) think it's real life. Maybe some people get confused? Then there is also thetestosterviolenceporn practised by our Governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Georgia, Libya, Syria, Israel and Palestine which IS real life. 


Very strange deformed species we are. The ugly part of Nature.

Saturday 15 December 2012

Wow! The Swing Commanders - feeling good!

When I was a younger woman, I made a tape with all my favourite music numbers on it. It's in our attic somewhere, and if I played it now, it might sound distorted and horrible and disappoint me. But our children remember that tape.

We went to a bit of a do last night in our village. The band was absolutely outstanding. The first six numbers they played were ALL on my tape! They did especially good Manhattan Transfer, Glen Miller stuff and Swing. Some of our kids were with us, they were tickled pink at my delight! It takes a lot to delight me nowadays. The Swing Commanders not only played REAL MUSIC from the Forties with harmonies, melody and meaning, they did it with such happiness. They did it without any laser decor, flashing lights, pounding sound system, and they used real SKILL.

I can't find any of their  Manhattan Transfer, Glen Miller stuff and the Swing we heard on the Internet - only - disappointingly - country and western and barn-dance stuff. But they did it and it was GOOD. For me, that was them at their best. 


They made my night - I'll feel better for days!

 



Friday 14 December 2012

Interesting site - A Theory of Civilisation

I recently read that Iatrogenic deaths (old statistics predicting foreward) were now the leading cause of death in the USA. I can't find the link to the new statistics, but the above example gives an idea.

And this article from the same website is interesting. 

But while perusing the website on which this information stands, I found fascinating stuff!

If, like me you feel you are living in a strange land, this man does too and he has written it all down over years and years!

A Theory Of Civilization

There is loads of delicious thought-meat here - just what I like!

Maybe you will too?

Thursday 13 December 2012

No birds or bees for sex education then?

Two ideas in this post

1.
I thought State and Church were separate entities?

"The Church of England and Church in Wales will be banned in law from offering same-sex marriages, but other religious organisations will be able to "opt in" to holding ceremonies."

I think "banning"  the Church of England and Church in Wales in doing anything is a bit rich whilst other religious organisations will be able to "opt in" or presumably "opt out".

Is this WEIRD? What am I missing?

2.
Is this even weirder?

 "On a separate point, Baroness Warsi asked Mrs Miller what consideration had been given to the teaching of equal marriage in schools, after concerns were raised about the impact of same-sex marriage on sex education."

Wonder what a lesson in THAT would be like? Confusing?

I suppose birds and bees aren't on any sex education syllabus anymore. 

I'm not complaining - just observing how we are progressing on this alien planet.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

How the Lemmings are made

If you have the time, do watch this video - very long - very thought provoking...take a few days if you are strapped for time. If you are a non-lemming, you will massively enjoy it.

If you are a Lemming - WATCH!

If you are wondering what is so strange about this alien feeling planet (like me) this is the explanation. It is about how propaganda works to control us and an explanation of how Lemmings are made!


The Century of the Self


Tuesday 11 December 2012

Cocking up the Lemmings

There is something strange with humans on this planet. They follow recieved wisdom without any thought about it themselves.

Perhaps we've been programmed by evolution to simply follow a leader without thought like a bunch of the proverbial lemmings that we used to believe threw themselves off the edge of cliffs, so  plunging into the sea.  Before we were told "scientifically" that lemmings did not do this, it was a symbol of supreme stupidity.

Well, humans display the exact same stupidity. They just follow the "leaders" thoughtlessly.

It's the non-lemmings that actually make change happen in the world. The non-lemmings THINK. They make their own wisdom. They ask questions that the lemmings find tedious because it stops their mindless running. Mindless running is satisfactory, safe and the runners think they are achieving - working towards progress whilst they are just following the latest current trend/leader/opinion.

Non-lemmings are called names by lemmings. They are derided and scoffed at. But you just need to convert a lot of lemmings to become non-lemmings - to think before they follow -  to change direction, and you have a whole new group cocking up the dash for the cliff.  This is every non-lemmings' duty to society.

If you read to the end of this post, you are probably a non-lemming like me.  You are asking questions like "Where has the war on drugs got us?" "Why are there no death certificates for "died by second hand smoke"" Why does no press release show that death by medical treatment is the biggest cause of avoidable death in the west?" "Why is the West still interfering in autonomous legal countries and not minding our own business?" "Is the UK a democracy?" "Are Governments just meddling mechanisms for Corporations?" "How big is big pharma?" "How trustworthy are scientists and science under pressure for funding and fame?"  "Do reptilians really run our planet?"

It really doesn't matter what challenges we make. Lets carry on cocking up lemming runs. It's our duty as non-lemmings. We don't ALL have to fall over the cliff.








Monday 10 December 2012

Mega meddling with a mega being

I feel distressed when I see our assault on planet earth. But of course, our modern culture needs to do this for its own survival. We are like ravenous animals that simply consume, consume and consume. These terrible wounds on a living creature will heal as all living systems do for themselves.




But some injuries might never heal - we cannot see what we are doing underground. We do some mega meddling thinking we are clever.  So far, we have managed to cope with the repercussions.

It fascinates me that we are focused on climate change and how we might be affecting that - we tax, have the Kyoto Protocol, and the greedy catch a ride on it too - good money making in climate change!

Where is the Protocol to limit the unseen damage we are doing deep underground, the doubts about fracking, deep mining and other attacks on our planet? Is there any attempt to control our rapaciousness?

We rely on the earth so completely for our survival, I don't know what the solution could be. We cannot go back - what does forward look like?

I think as our technology develops we will be able to do what we will consider wondrous things forgetting we are dealing with a living creature with whom we need to co-operate.

Saturday 8 December 2012

An Abuse post - Pranks as abuse

I have always been repulsed by the idea of playing a prank on someone else. They can be the cruelest things and the prankster takes upon himself, the role of bully. It doesn't matter how trivial the prank is - a farting cushion or a "surprise" party. Any idea of something fun (to you) but disconcerting to another is abuse.

I can't imagine why it is deemed to be funny to watch another person discomforted in any way. Pranks are abuse. Pranks are ABUSE of someone else.

Why this should appear amusing, clever, or funny eludes me... "One man’s airborne proposal took his girlfriend’s breath away when he pretended that their small plane was in trouble and asked her to read an emergency checklist that contained instructions for a “ring engagement procedure.”

People who set up pranks like this should be arrested on assault charges. "After the person steps onto the elevator, men dressed as death-care workers board afterward with a casket, which they place upright in the corner. Then they leave to fetch a funeral wreath, but the elevator door closes before they can get back in time.
 
First the victims of the prank deal with the unsettling thought that they are sharing the ride with a dead body. Then comes tapping from within the coffin just before it opens and a body falls forward, hanging limply." etc etc

This is funny? To whom is it funny? At whose cost is it funny?

Pranks can go horribly wrong as we know. This prank is one with the most tragic consequences.

Duchess of Cambridge hoax call nurse found dead

Its a horrible start to a pregnancy for any new Mum, and an unimaginable
 shock for the nurse's family and co-workers.

I hope it pulls all pranksters up short - pranks are really not funny. They are simply abuse of another human being. What a pity some folk enjoy this kind of abuse, doing it and watching it, quite unaware that they are committing an emotional/physical harm to someone else for a cheap laugh.

Friday 7 December 2012

Climate Change - Mugs either way


For far too long I have felt "Somethings not quite right" in all the hoo-ha that surrounds the Climate Change issue. It's a money/tax scam more likely.  Greed usually rules and what a wonderful way to make a profit. I think there are loads of people who feel the same way I do.

Only time will reveal what is currently as clear as mud. And by then we might regret we are such mugs - either way!

.

Thursday 6 December 2012

Another Abuse blog - "withholding" as abuse and old people

I just came back from teaching someone who, at the end of the sesson shared that her daughter hadn't spoken to her since last Christmas. “Why?” I asked. “Because she and her husband came to visit over last Christmas and I told their dogs to get off my couch. They didn't like that.”

I meet quite a few old people in my work,who have fallen out with their children over all kinds of trivial things. My client who told the dogs to get off her couch is eighty and a new widow. I felt sorry for her. She was so distressed her eyes filled with tears.

I think anybody has a right to tell anyone else’s dogs to get off their couch – and anyone who allows their dogs on other people's couches is in the wrong. The problem here is that she is the MOTHER. Mothers are expected to let their grown up kids do what they like when they come “home”. So she erred fatally by speaking her mind.

She is also the MOTHER-IN-LAW and in effect, criticised her son-in-law by telling the dogs off.  They are a childless couple. The dogs are their children.

So, when you are a young mother, or the mother of teenagers, you are able to set your parameters and discipline your offspring when your slob children give no help in the house, or jump up and down on your lounge chairs. You are a central point. But when they grow up, if you retain your right to speak your mind, in your own home – or god help you – in your grown up children's homes, you are instantly punished.

An old parent becomes a toothless, powerless, old person, completely at the mercy of abuse by their own children.

Not speaking to your mother because she told your dogs to get off her couch at Christmas, is called “withholding” - a very potent form of abuse – and one listed in my abuse blogs.

At eighty, old parents become less confident, more timid, more untouched by any human hand, less central, and, like all of us – require loving. The love that is most important to them, is the love of their own children.

I don't know who the silly daughter is – shame on her. If she were mine, I'd give her a good talking to! I wouldn't get cowed so easily. But then, I'm not eighty – yet!
.

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Are we nuts?

There are lots of things I don't understand so I ask the question - why do we (the UK government) have to be a gracious patron to the rest of the world?

This kind of thing makes me wonder quote "Britain has promised a total of £2.9bn. .... our share of the long-term goal of $100bn by 2020," said Davey. "Between now and 2015 our climate finance commitments (to Africa) will continue" We have already paid out a packet. Aren't WE the ones short of money?

Not to mention the cost of EU Membership see here
and here Can we AFFORD this?

And there are all sorts of other outgoings to other countries. We are so gracious!

Why it makes me confused is because no one in government seems to understand plain budgeting that us ordinary folk understand. If you spend more than comes in - you are in the dwang. If you BORROW to buy something and your incomings won't be able to pay it back you are in deep dwang! If you are hemorrhaging money out of your own physical system, you need to stop the flow surely? You can't give your money away if you need it yourself.

To me it seems very peculiar to  graciously fund other countries and dish out oodles of money you haven't got to the rest of the world at the expense of your citizens, or otherwise increasing the "public" debt by borrowing it to give it away.

Any person in the street, working with incomings and outgoings is wiser than Government. Perhaps they should be running the money? To me, the money policy of our Government just seems nuts.





Tuesday 4 December 2012

Talking shit

Way back in the 60's and 70's people with a new vision were living in communes where sewerage was used as a source of power. The dream was to be completely self sufficient.

Why is it we cannot get off the ground with using sewerage to produce power/gas for our own use?

In 2009 Davyhulme in Manchester was the new exciting project. Well, I don'tv really know much about it, but has it ever got off the ground? I see it was still going to be an exciting project in 2012 too. 

What has happened to The Davyhulme project? Well, it's probably going to become more expensive than how we get our gas now.

That's the way of things in this modern world, innit?  Going green is more expensive than staying black and puts us in the red!

But maybe I'm talking shit?  These guys are going to try it too.

Monday 3 December 2012

Avoid dying at all costs

This is a really strange place - this planet - especially the UK part of it.

We are living in a fairytale of illusion even though we are supposedly "scientific" now. 

We believe all sorts of stuff that simply isn't true. We do this, because we are not told the truth. We are lied to by ommission or twististics by lobby groups aka charitable industries, the government, politicians, medical studies, other nitwits who believe everything they are told.

So I would like to point out some facts that industrious truth seekers can confirm.

England is bankrupt - only it is not called that.

No one knows what to do about it.

We do not live in a democracy but a corporatocracy.

No one knows how to loosen its grip.

The more hman rights we press for, the less free we become.

No one knows how to rectify that.

We have too many regulations overlapping other regulations - a legal entanglement.

No one knows which laws to scrap n case the whole thing unravels.

No laboratory has managed to cause cancer in animals by making them smoke.

We don't know why.

Most people are controlled by the sins of greed and avarice.

Religions condemn it, Athiest don't talk about it.

There are too many people in the world/country.

No one knows how to solve the problem.

Everyone thinks growth is good - economic and otherwise.

Continual growth is an impossible state that few speak about.

Our biggest fear is  of death.

No one knows what to do about that, except to avoid dying at all costs, even to the cost of happiness.







Saturday 1 December 2012

Some things were REALLY WORSE then.

Yesterday I wrote about what seemed REALLY BETTER then, when I was young, because it felt like a kind of freedom unknown today. Then, society had less people, simpler technology, and a more rigid system of right and wrong. Now I want to remember what was really worse.

Falling pregnant was considered a terrible shame. Young girls were sent away and unmarried mothers had their babies removed in the cruelest manner.

Being unhappily married was a prison many couples lived in with no recourse to freeing themselves from it. The children grew up in unhealthy surroundings of non-love.

Mothers were not expected to work, were paid less than men, did more menial work and were expected to know their place was really in the home.

Women wore hats, gloves, suspender belts and stockings. Most garments needed ironing and grubby children, caused ire at the extra work their grubbyness caused for mothers with no washing machines, well, perhaps twin tubs if they were reasonably off. Otherwise, washboards over the bath would clean stuff and leave you with red, chapped hands. 

There were no detergents. Cleaning was hard work - elbow grease did it. Kids had chores to do to help. For the ladies beer was used to set hair - or sugar water. Lemon juice rinse or vinegar gave a shine. There was no conditioner, so girls screamed in agony as our mothers forced the knots out of our long hair. There were no manufactured shampoos, face creams or cleansers. Women used cold cream, lanolin and soap and water.

Sundays when no one worked, many people went to church - kids were packed off to Sunday School to keep them out of mischief. Some kids hated that. But you could get them more enthusiastic with milk and cookies after.

There were no calculators. Math was done by mental discipline. Everyone had to learn their times tables. Children failed classes and were held back to repeat it. This could sometimes be more destructive than helpful.

School projects had to be researched in libraries out of books with Dewey classifications. There were no copy machines except Gestetners whose copy sheets had to be typed up on an old, slow heavy typewriters on wax paper. We could make home-made jelly in a baking tray which would copy primitive illustrations from carbon paper. Duplicating stuff was laborious and sometimes impossible.

Cars were uncomfortable and basic for ordinary people - if they owned one at all. Only rich people had luxurious cars.

Air travel in small  twin engined planes was only for the rich and took forever to get anywhere. Less affluent folk could sail steerage class on ships if they wanted to travel, and some freighters would take a few passengers cheaply.


We were frightened of Polio - epidemics that spread through countries. Many were left crippled or died from it. This was at a time when Drug Companies as massive industry were just starting to infiltrate the medical system and  Governments. They began to push their wares on Doctors who, at that time, had a much smaller repertoire of cures. Many diseases were incurable. Doctors did not tell you if the one you had, was. But they might let your family know who could collaborate, leaving the sick person in ignorance.

Conversely, the Big Tobacco corporations were advertising their products so that smoking became normal and entrenched in society. Most everyone smoked, it relaxed you, stimulated you and even looked sexy. All the stars smoked. Doctors smoked. They could even advise a patient to smoke for their "nerves". This was setting the scene for Big Parma to later take over their profits.

Abortion was illegal and many women died from botched abortions, or were left sterile. And unwanted pregnancies happened because there was no efficient birth control except condoms that were hidden in pharmacies and embarrassing to ask for. Unmarried women falling pregnant were so shamed they would do anything to avoid the scandal

There was deep hypocrisy in the fact that sex was not discussed in polite circles. Children grew up having to learn from experience or from myth and legend!

Children were expected to be seen and not heard, to be very polite to grownups and not question the actions of adults. They mostly wore clothes and school uniforms inherited from their siblings.

Most ordinary people's houses had no central heating - houses were cold. Some houses had no bathrooms and loos were outside. Loo paper was horrible scratchy stuff - Jeyes - like greaseproof paper for bottoms.

People had to repair stuff if it broke and darn clothes, socks and turn collars - most people were less well off than they are today. Newly married couples accepted furniture and furnishings from members of their families. Most families lived on the same continents

We must be a really strong bunch to survive all that - and we are still going! And it was US that caused improvements in society - the battling baby boomers - protesting, challenging, arguing and promoting our vision of a better world.

That was before scientific "statistics", government "nannying" or the "blame" culture.