Nige now lies

Don’t they all?

Get the family doctor involved; a friend’s wife was experiencing problems with her eyes, and her doctor diagnosed a progressive deterioration. He confiscated her car keys, and told her to get the bus home; her licence was revoked, and she has never driven since.

Not so much Happy Christmas (which can be a desperate time for those living alone,) but you have my sincere wishes that 2015 will be a helluva lot better, for you, than 2014.

Would anyone have a copy of that days “Orb” ?

If you don’t mind waiting for a future visit to Kew (possibly the 20th. or 27th.,) I’ll have a look at the microfilmed copy.

If you Google “Gordon Lang,” and make sure you get the right one, you’ll find they’ve backtracked, and things are improving. Apparently nobody had told them about his medical condition (allegedly); odd how not knowing is no defence for us peasants, but regularly gets trotted out for our lords and masters.
Sadly, these “jobs” seem to attract the worst types; my mate’s mother-in-law went to work for the Inland Revenue (as it was then,) but left, in disgust at the way staff were walking around, openly boasting of how they’d managed to get members of the public to pay too much tax.
My “angry moment” today came while in the Gents at my local Tesco store; having used the urinal, I was washing my hands, when a bloke came out of one of the sit-down stalls, stuck only his right hand (presumably it was the one with which he’d wiped himself) under the cold tap, shook off the excess water all over my shirt, then “dried” it, and walked out. What is so unmanly about washing germs off ones hands?

Apparently they usually stuff the body into a crevice, and leave it for time to do its work on the flesh, which makes it more palatable; rather like hanging game, I suppose.

Children left school able to read and write..

Much of that was (in my school, at least) due to the better readers being put one-to-one with the poor readers, to help.

At school they didn’t receive the perverted attention of oversexed teachers.

But there were plenty of rumours, but it was something which was never mentioned in public.

We weren’t threatened with domestic or industrial power/energy cuts

Anyone who lived through the miners’ strike will vehemently disagree with that statement, and my village regularly suffered cuts in the 50s & 60s.

Food was plentiful but obesity was unknown

Only because the “posh” word was unknown; there were “fat” children (I was one,) who suffered teasing and bullying throughout their entire school lives.

Richard Doll had made plain the association between smoking and lung cancer. Smokers were quitting.

In the 50s’60s we all wanted to smoke, because it was adult; I didn’t because I couldn’t afford it, neither did most of my friends, but the one who really embraced it is still smoking at 70.

Swearing in public was unknown

No it wasn’t, since it was always heard on the shop floor, but swearing in front of (and by) women was taboo.

Eating or drinking in public was just as bad as swearing.

Largely because the pollution (aka “smog”) made the idea dangerous, even lethal. Pubs in my village had garden areas which were regularly used.