Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend/School

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John Pickup
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by John Pickup »

Anita Bensoussane wrote: I never got so much as a sniff of Pong!
Very subtle, Anita. I like that. :D
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Cheers, John! What I really longed for in the 70s/early 80s was a sniff of a mystery!

Just watched the 90s episode on iplayer and found it interesting to see how technology "encroached" more and more as the decade wore on. Seth seemed mesmerised by that Game Boy!

I'd forgotten how annoying M C Hammer's Can't Touch This was!

We used to have a cassette of "whale music" and one or two other New Agey cassettes in the 90s - I remember one called Mystic Heart by Denis Quinn.

Changing Rooms and Ground Force were great fun to watch - it was all about MDF and decking!

Those tree-tops adventure trails with zip wires etc. are still going. My son went on one in France last year and loved it.

Looking forward to next week's episode, about possible leisure activities of the future.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Francis »

Anita wrote
Changing Rooms and Ground Force were great fun to watch - it was all about MDF and decking!
There is something to be said for 2016 after all! :)
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Francis »

Seeing the reprise of the series was interesting - especially as the family liked the 1970s best. Izzy and I realised that, unlike the family, we had experienced and remembered all the decades from the 1950s onwards. Although we were nostalgic for the previous decades, especially the people, we probably preferred the current day. Mind you we don't spend time on mobile phones etc and still do plenty of communicating face to face. I notice that when we have a Blyton meet-up we don't find people texting or talking on their phones. Maybe it's because we all share the same interest.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Poppy »

I also thought that last night's episode was very interesting and I have thoroughly enjoyed the series, overall. :D
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by floragord »

I was disappointed to miss most of the series, the content of how leisure time has altered over the decades sounded most interesting, but I found the family participating this time so teeth grindingly ghastly that watching it would have had me in the dental chair for more than my share of remedial intervention... :roll:
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Poppy »

floragord wrote:but I found the family participating this time so teeth grindingly ghastly
That's interesting, Floragord - what did you find so 'ghastly' about them? :D I know that some people here said the same about the previous family; the Robshaws. Both families seem quite nice, genuine people in my opinion.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Daisy »

I found the latter family better than the first and was quite impressed with both children, particularly the boy who seemed to appreciate the positives of each decade and was very articulate too. I have enjoyed each decade - they brought back many memories.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I caught up with the final episode last night on iplayer and found it interesting. As presenter Giles Coren commented, it's funny to think that the new technology of the 1950s-60s (items like washing-machines, fridges and vacuum cleaners) created free time by liberating people from some of the more time-consuming housework and shopping, whereas the new technology of today fills up our free time (things like computers, electronic gadgets and gaming devices)!

I wasn't too impressed with the little "robots" that mowed the lawn, vacuumed the floor or cleaned the windows. They didn't seem to do a good job, and how often would they need repairing or replacing?

I'm intrigued by the idea of a 3-D printer but is it expensive to run? How much does it cost to buy the material(s) you need to put in it?

Riding an exercise bike into a "virtual reality" landscape looks fun. No fresh air though, and no sense of satisfaction in reaching a destination! Like Steph, I suffer from motion sickness so it may not be for me anyway.

I've heard that there are privacy and safety issues with drones so I'm not too sure about them myself.

As for extreme decluttering (Giles remarked that CDs, DVDs and books weren't really needed in this age of digitalisation), I don't like the thought of that at all! I sympathised with Daisy when she said she didn't want to throw away the history of her life and with Steph when she said she appreciated the physical contact of a proper book. Giles' reply was that you could have "hologram clutter" if you wanted to add a personal touch to your home, but in my opinion that's not the same as having real objects with their own history that you can touch and smell and manipulate.

Interesting comments on getting a balance between life lived in the moment and life experienced through a screen. I don't have an iphone/smartphone but I have come across people who are very anxious about their phone - they have to take it wherever they go and check it every half an hour or so, and it constantly intrudes on what they're doing. Quite a sobering thought to think that places of "digital detox" may be set up in the future, where people will go to take a break from relentless digital bombardment.

I enjoyed the series and I'm glad the Ashby-Hawkins family felt they got a lot from the experience.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by floragord »

floragord wrote:Eventually watched the first episode and ooops, thought it was ghastly - apart from the brilliant boy, who at least got some delight out of the new experiences, the rest was what Dr Mario Martinez calls day to day "ordinary misery"... The mother's silken put-downs, ongoing complaints and flouncing out of church, the whingeing daughter, a real chip off the old block and the sad, kind husband made us fully appreciate why this family was selected for the experiment when their everyday life is all about isolation through technology. Our final conclusion was if they were sitting at the next table in a restaurant we'd run like thieves :?
Just a personal point of view, Poppy, I found the family in the earlier series much more congenial, like everything else purely a matter of choice! Changes in food and lifestyle through the decades is an interesting topic and nostalgic to some degree, no doubt there are potentially all sorts of new possibilities ahead in a variety of areas of good everyday living.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by Daisy »

The Robshaw family were all right but I did despair at the lack of ability of the mother to work out how to use a tin-opener! My husband thinks they should have had more help in learning how to use equipment from an earlier time than seemed to be the case.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by floragord »

An interesting variation on the above theme with a new 6 part series, BACK IN TIME FOR TEA starting last night. Following the Ellis family from Bradford, they embark on a time travelling quest to find out how the diets of ordinary families in the North of the country have changed since 1918 - lots of bread and lard featured! Social historian Polly Russell came up with some interesting recipes such as tripe and onions - which probably doesn't appear on many menus now!
"Its a magic wood!" said Fanny suddenly.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend

Post by jon beeza »

Me and the missus loved the series with the Robshaw family. We watched the one with the Ellis family last night. Not sure if we will enjoy the current one as much, we will wait and see.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend/School

Post by floragord »

We're enjoying the latest installment in this enjoyable series, BACK IN TIME FOR SCHOOL - totally fascinating to see how education has completely altered in the last 100 years. There is no family involved this time, but a group of contemporary school children experiencing school life decade by decade, most recent was the 1960s, quite a lot of which looked fairly familiar.
"Its a magic wood!" said Fanny suddenly.
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Re: Back in Time for Dinner/the Weekend/School

Post by timv »

I agree that this series is absolutely fascinating - not least it gives modern children like the participants a valuable insight into how things used to be at school. I'm a great believer in 'living history' and have seen most of these BBC variations on the subject, starting with the dinner/ tea series; it would be a really great idea to have this sort of experience as a regular part of students' education but I suspect the 'exam factory' enthusiasts in authority would say it wasted time that could be spent on improving their schools' pass-rate for the league tables! It would give people a great sense of how fluid 'norms' of social experiences are in a fast-moving world and stimulate debate.

This series on school life in particular helps to remind us that what seems 'normal procedure' today is in reality an extremely recent creation and things used to be a lot different - 'the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there' to quote from L P Hartley's novel 'The Go Between' (one of my favourites - perhaps LPH should be in the 'top significant 100 authors' list?). The most recent two episodes shown in the UK, on the Fifties grammar school syllabus and the Sixties secondary modern syllabus, were especially illuminating and can feed into the current debate about reviving a system of 'technical/ craft - centred' schools for people who would not do so well in written exams. The presentation was a bit more relaxed than in the early 'dinner' episodes a couple of years ago, which improved it in my opinion.

Bits of these two episodes reminded me of what was going on at my own provincial Sussex grammar school and at friends' local secondary moderns in the early 1970s; the situation in c.1970 was still quite like the 1950s except that the girls had given up 'gym tunics'. (The Head and senior staff still wore academic gowns to teach then, whereas younger men wore 'The Sweeney'-style suits and flared trousers, and the Head was furious if boys 'let the school down' by not wearing caps in the street en route to school !) The bemusement of modern staff and children at a formal Christian assembly with hymns struck me in particular - a bit depressing, really, even if the old assemblies were not very 'inclusive' for non-Anglicans.
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