According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were 
kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived. 
Because first, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank 
while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for 
diabetes. Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based 
paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or 
cabinets, and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and 
fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride 
in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was 
a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted 
the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar 
in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one 
actually died from this. We would spend hours building go-carts out of 
scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot 
the brakes.

After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the 
problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we 
were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 
channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile 
phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms.

We had friends - we went outside and found them. We played elastics and 
rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt! We fell out of trees, got 
cut, and broke bones but there were no lawsuits.

We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners 
catching us. We walked to friends' homes. We also, believe it or 
not,WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to 
school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.We rode bikes in packs of 
7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us 
out if we broke a law was unheard of...They actually sided with the law.


This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem 
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of 
innovation and new ideas We had freedom, failure, success and 
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!


The majority of students in universities today were born in the late 
80s........They are called youth.

They have never heard of:
We are the World, We are the children and the Uptown Girl they know is 
by Westlife not Billy Joel.

They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda 
Carlisle. (possibly not a bad thing of course....) For them, there has 
always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.

AIDS has existed since they were born.

CD's have existed since they were born.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't 
imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from 
last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.

They'll never have pretended to be the A Team Red Hand Gang or the 
Famous Five.

They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a 
mobile phone.

Now, let's check if we're getting old...
1. You understand what was written above and you smiled.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably 
with computers.
5. When you see kids with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.
7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old 
days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.
8. You're starting to dance like your father/mother..............God 
forbid!!


Daren
-- 
Walkthrough recordings of speccy games: http://www.rzxarchive.co.uk/
Speccy game endings: http://www.speccyspoilers.co.uk/

In article <fc9f7k$j2i$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>, pearcy@gmail-
nospam.com says...

> We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. 

pah i had a tandy video game console thingy and the missus had an atari 
2600

-- 
"Please be informed that Port 80 is meant only for the FTP files 
upload."
Deewna, BT Total Broadband Support

Mal Franks  did eloquently scribble:
> In article <fc9f7k$j2i$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>, pearcy@gmail-
> nospam.com says...

>> We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. 

> pah i had a tandy video game console thingy and the missus had an atari 
> 2600

pah, I had a second hand binatone videogame thingy with 10 different (but
somehow identical) games of bip bip bipbop bip. aka pong.

They were chucking it out next door and offered it us first.
think it was binatone.. might've been an even crappier brand.
-- 
|                          |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack|
|  spike1@freenet.co.uk    |in the ground beneath a giant boulder, which you|
|                          |can't move, with no hope of rescue.             |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)|Consider how lucky you are that life has been   |
|           in             |good to you so far...                           |
|    Computer Science      |   -The BOOK, Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy.|

In article , spike1@freenet.co.uk 
says...
> Mal Franks  did eloquently scribble:
> > In article <fc9f7k$j2i$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>, pearcy@gmail-
> > nospam.com says...
> 
> >> We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. 
> 
> > pah i had a tandy video game console thingy and the missus had an atari 
> > 2600
> 
> pah, I had a second hand binatone videogame thingy with 10 different (but
> somehow identical) games of bip bip bipbop bip. aka pong.

my tandy was a similar type of videogame - though it had the lightgun 
and the throttle thingy for stunt bike thing (jumping over buses..well 
other blobs and motocross jumping over small blobs)

-- 
"Please be informed that Port 80 is meant only for the FTP files 
upload."
Deewna, BT Total Broadband Support