Saturday, April 03, 2010

Twenty Great Things About the 1980s

1. Margaret Thatcher.

2. Labour couldn't win an election.

3. Putting the Unions back in their box.

4. Enabling millions of people to buy shares for the first time.

5. A-ha & Alphaville.

6. Audi Quattros.

7. Ejecting the Argentinians from the Falklands.

8. Enabling hundreds of thousands of people to buy their own homes.

9. Ronald Reagan & Mikhail Gorbachev.

10. The Mullett.

11. Ian Botham

12. Airplane.

13. Trevor Brooking & Alan Devonshire, Tony Cottee & Frank McAvennie.

14. Winning the Cold War.

15. Trivial Pursuit.

16. Beating Scargill and his band of thugs.

17. J R Ewing.

18. Nena's 99 Luftballons and her hairy armpits.

19. The Conservatives winning three elections in a row.

20. The advent of Sky TV.

23 comments:

moorlandhunter said...

I will alaways be proud of being one of Maggies 'Boys.'

Bill Quango MP said...

80'S posters for Gordon.

Brown in a white RELAX ‘its under control’ T/shirt, laughing and sitting on the bonnet of the Trotter’s van.

Tag lines:
This man has already taken your wages back to the 80’s.
“Tories say .. No More.”


The Terminator.
Brown on the motorcycle in the leather outfit. Half the exoskeleton head peeled away to reveal the metal skull and glowing red eye.

SKYDEBT. The lies of the party Machines.

“I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle. And your pension, your gold, your interest, your wages, your house, your savings and your children’s salaries and their children’s earnings too. And when you die I need another 10% of whatever you have left. And then.. I’ll be back… for more.”

Drew said...

Here's mine:

1) ZX Spectrum
2) Apple Mac
3) First commercially available hand-held cellular phones
4) Rubik's Cube craze
5) Hair gel
6) Live Aid
7) Early EastEnders
8) The Beiderbecke Trilogy
9) Edge Of Darkness
10)Whopping great shoulder pads
11)House Music
12)Hip Hop
13)High interest in political matters amongst the electorate.
14)The Golden Girls
15)Comic Relief
16)Pet Shop Boys
17)Pac-Man
18)Designer stubble
19)Number 73
20)Neighbours with Mrs Mangel

S.B.S said...

One could also shoot semi-auto rifles,and go pistol shooting, but thanks to the Conservatives we can no longer do that.
So those of us who want to return to those days have no one to vote for?

happiness said...

Hate Reagan and Sky. The rest I agree with.

Drew said...

Sorry, I forgot a couple of things... can I make mine a top 25, please, Iain?

21) Invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989
22) Deelyboppers
23) Launches of Channel 4, Breakfast TV and Sky
24) The Bt "Ology" ad
25) The "Re-record not fade away" Scotch video tape ad of 1985, plus the rise of video recorders throughout the 1980s.

Drew said...

Oh no - I forgot Spitting Image!

Anonymous said...

80s:
1) Birth of my son
2) Scargill's defeat
3) BBC micro and Apple Mac
4) Tearing of my union card (AUT) when the union supremo made us wait for 1 hour with no apologies
5) Lived in Scotland, some good ( friends), some bad ( 5:30PM closure of shops in Aberdeen) and some ugly (Scots dependent so much on State)
6) Learned with pleasure that two of my old students became CEOs of companies
7) Ann Diamond vs Denis Healy, the latter was truly made to look like a fool.
8) Hitler's diaries and Lord Dacre's (Hugh Trevor Roper) reputation in tatters
9) TV am and the galaxy of stars not attracting audience numbers
10)Moving back to London from Scotland

thespecialone said...

Great about the 80s in no particular order?

1. My beautiful now nearly 28 yr old daughter was born.
2. Falklands. As an ex-matelot it made me extremely proud of my armed forces colleagues, despite the losses.
3. Mrs M. Thatcher
4. Scargill put in his box.
5. Notts miners standing up to Scargill thugs.
6. Anything to do with Labour was hopeless.
7. No political correctness. It didnt mean everyone was a racist or sexist. We got on with people we liked.

leftpeg said...

1. The domination of Liverpool FC.
2. Nearing the end of Thatch's reign of Terror.
3. The music.

That's all.

King Athelstan said...

1,Sonic Youth and The Butthole Surfers. 2,VCRs. 3,Compact Discs. 4,Wings Of Desire and Paris,Texas. 5,Blackadder. 6, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. 7,The Smiths. 8,Smokey boozers. 9,Leaving school. 10,Taggart 11,Full Metal Jacket. 12,Bryan Robson. 13,Not wearing make up or poncey clothes. 14,Michael Foot getting slaughtered. 15,Norman Whiteside Wembley 1985. 16,Joining the RAF. 17,Doner Kebabs. 18,The fall of the Berlin wall, (and the end of the cold war.) 19,David Pleats dance on the Maine Road pitch. 20,Kathy Bagley.

DespairingLiberal said...

1. Margaret Thatcher.

On the whole, she didn't deliver what I think you think she did and she was a different person in reality to her image. For example, you probably think she cut public spending. I bet you also think she was anti-EU. The latter was actually just a fit of pique right at the end of her reign - and behind the scenes, she was a committed enabler of the EU agenda.

2. Labour couldn't win an election.

True. But then again, they didn't have the bottomless treasury made available to the Conservatives, the lie machine at Saatchi and the Thatcher grasp for propaganda.

3. Putting the Unions back in their box.

Didn't work, did it - I don't know if you've noticed, but they are still around.

4. Enabling millions of people to buy shares for the first time.

Yawn. Which they promptly sold. At the end of the MT period, institutions had further concentrated their grip on the FTSE.

5. A-ha & Alphaville.

True.

6. Audi Quattros.

True.

7. Ejecting the Argentinians from the Falklands.

Hmmm. Seems like maybe that one won't have worked in the long run.

8. Enabling hundreds of thousands of people to buy their own homes.

And axing spending on social housing, a policy which has contributed to many of the present crises.

9. Ronald Reagan & Mikhail Gorbachev.

Actually agree, but I suspect that again you are confused as to why. Reagan was in fact much more centrist and even left-leaning in some ways that you might think. Gorbachev is usually accused by Tories of being a helpless victim of US defence spending, so it's refreshing to see him acknowledged by one of your political colour.

10. The Mullett.

Er. No.

11. Ian Botham

Again very over-rated.

12. Airplane.

Yes!

13. Trevor Brooking & Alan Devonshire, Tony Cottee & Frank McAvennie.

Don't care.

14. Winning the Cold War.

B****. The Soviet system simply crumbled.

15. Trivial Pursuit.

Looks very, very boring now and probably was soon after it came out.

16. Beating Scargill and his band of thugs.

Yeah sure, all those images of police beating up miners were faked.

17. J R Ewing.

Hagman was never as good as he was made out to be, hence why he didn't work much afterwards.

18. Nena's 99 Luftballons and her hairy armpits.

Have to agree with that one!

19. The Conservatives winning three elections in a row.

See M Thatcher.

20. The advent of Sky TV.

Channel 4 was much better. Sky just repeatedly proves that you can throw money at something repeatedly without ever achieving quality.

Anonymous said...

1. The Lady's not for turning
2. Love & Money - Jocelyn Square
2. My Peugeot 205 1.9 GTI
3. The last time we trusted politicians
4. Dear Bill
5. The Young Ones
6. Henry Root
7. Great Britain
8. Erica Roe ('Ere Bill, there's a bird just run on the pitch with your arse strapped to her chest)
9. 1984 UEFA Cup Final and Tony Parks
10. Brass
11. Botham's Ashes
12. Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
13. The Berlin Wall, Wenceslas Square, Bucarest
14. Norman Tebbit
15. Steve Earle - Copperhead Road
16. Local Hero
17. Hot Metal
18. Aerosmith - Don't Get Mad, Get Even
19. An Archer
20. Aldaniti

Dick Puddlecote said...

Dang! I was writing mine tonight too.

There'd have been minutes in it if Doctor Who hadn't started. ;-)

richard.blogger said...

The only one that matters is Guido's #6.

The rest of the 80s was just an embarrassment. And you know it.

Unknown said...

Despairing Liberal, at risk of beiing accused of obsequiousness towards our host, I really don't think Iain Dale is unaware of what Margaret Thatcher actually did in office, or that he somehow believes she did a whole bunch of other things that really she didn't.

My top thing about the eighties: my own birth! :)

Rush-is-Right said...

The Ford Capri injection 2.8

One hell of a car (until a corner came along anyway!)

Rush-is-Right said...

Nottingham Forest and then Aston Villa winning the European Champions Cup.

Patrick said...

Here is some

1. quickest world cup goal ever ( bryan robson; 1982)
2. no speed cameras
3. physical records ruled.
4. record shops everywhere. (where have they gone?)
5. Better music shows on TV. (Top of the pops!)
6. Better DJs on radio 1. ( ie Nicky Campbell & Simon Mayo )
7. Stock markets went up and up!
8. Best pensions in the world.
9. Good rates for savers (it was worth saving!)
9. Public Service TV on the BBC
10. Weather was better. Summers were warmer and longer. Im certain.

Chris said...

21. You could still say "It's a free country" without it seeming darkly ironic.

Paul Halsall said...

Section 28?

James Dowden said...

21) Television advertising was actually good. In the 1980s, if some misfortune befell you, you'd smoke a Hamlet cigar; nowadays, you'd ring a no-win-no-fee lawyer.

tory boys never grow up said...

And you don't like my handle because it makes the point that the politics of the Tory boy bloggers haven't developed since the 1980s?!

Of of course Gorbachev now describes his politics as being that of social democrat and supports a party that is affiliated to the Socialist International

Can anyone make a serious case that the pop music of the 80s was better that that of the 70s and 60s