THERE were strikes and shortages and scandals, but you know what there wasn’t in the 1970s? Bloody complications. For example:  

Affairs 

For men it was simple: if the opportunity for extra-marital sex came up, you took it. For women it was slightly more complicated: you could only take it if you weren’t getting any at home. Either way, everyone cheerfully shagged everyone else, all the time. 

Smoking 

You could smoke in the pub, on the bus, in the cinema, in the office, anywhere you liked. The centrepiece of every lounge was an overflowing ashtray and everywhere was a fug of blue-grey smoke, permanently. Nobody minded, and anyone who died would have died anyway. 

Tortoises 

You got a tortoise, painted its name on its shell, and stuck it in the garden for eight months of the year where it happily munched lettuce. In November Blue Peter showed you how to stick it in a box and hope for the best. Now you need heat lamps and UV lamps and bloody kale. 

Dogshit 

Walk the dog, it does a shit, why’s that any of your problem? 

Childcare 

The designated childcare provider throughout school holidays was the oldest kid on the street. A gang of kids, nominally overseen by a 13-year-old, would spend whole days in disused quarries throwing rocks at a floating oil drum. Bring it back. 

Education 

Teachers were war veterans who could give you a clout, but there were no consequences to not learning anything because you could get a factory job. Psychopathic bullying passed the time. 

Tories 

Before Thatcher there wasn’t all this buggering about with market forces and free ports. The Tories wanted to be in charge because they were landowning Lords born to rule. They never pretended to like you.