Americans don't you just love them

And while we're on the subject of other Belgian members, I am still reading this topic and am inching ever closer to locking it.
Stereotyping can be fun sometimes ... as long as the members from said country can laugh about the comments. However the fun ends the minute someone is offended and the whole thing turns into an argument.


Play nice now.
 
Neil":10n82wi0 said:
Something I find poignant, though, that was something I talked about to my own kids - as a kid growing up, there simply wasn't anything like the same degree of things for kids and young people to do around the home. TVs were in the main sitting room, and either only on at certain times, or mostly ruled by what the grown-ups wanted to watch. Computers were pretty much non-existent until around the early 80s. Music was possible, but awkward, and limited and hard to do personally.

Books were a sudden passport to something to fill times when you couldn't be off and out, running around knocking on peoples' doors for amusement, whizzing around on bikes with absolutely no consideration about helmets, and generally doing things that would have 'elf-n-safety experts apoplectic these days. As a young kid, I read, A LOT - partly because there was sod all else to do, and partly because it was something that captured my interest where there was nothing else, really, to do so.

I'm not so sure that modern telly has all that much extra choice these days. There were less channels back then, but the amount of stuff on that was worth watching wasn't appreciably less. Although it's a shame BBC Four didn't exist back in the day (Some might say BBC Four is the new BBC2, not so sure myself).
As for doing stuff that the H&S folk might frown upon, I seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time at the Midland Counties Eye Infirmary as a nipper due to getting all sorts of stuff in them. That I have near-perfect sight these days is down to their prompt treatment and a dollop of good luck!

David
 
David B":zfrgfmdt said:
I'm not so sure that modern telly has all that much extra choice these days.
I really meant in the context of kids.

When I was a kid, growing up, there may be a little bit of kids TV at certain times - but these days, there's countless TV channels dedicated to kids TV. So growing up, it tended to mean you might watch stuff you wouldn't have simply / lazily chosen yourself - or not - and read a book, or gone out and done something, or tinker with bikes!

For kids, these days, there's so many choices of stuff that just occupies them in their own bubble without stretching them - be it TV, DVDs, Nintendo DSs, consoles, computers - they've got so much more stuff to occupy them before they have to resort to reading a book, or fixing something, or finding out how something works.
 
Neil":3vgd79ea said:
David B":3vgd79ea said:
I'm not so sure that modern telly has all that much extra choice these days.
I really meant in the context of kids.

When I was a kid, growing up, there may be a little bit of kids TV at certain times - but these days, there's countless TV channels dedicated to kids TV.

Oops - sorry, slightly wrong end of the stick there. You're right, though - kids shows have the luxury (not necessarily in a good way; my teenage niece will watch any old dross, frankly) of breakfast-to-bedtime programming these days, rather than just mostly weekday teatimes and Saturday mornings*.

David

*Saturday morning telly - partly responsible for the rise to prominence of Edmonds and Cheggers. Thanks a bunch, BBC.
 
David B":1mt874iu said:
*Saturday morning telly - partly responsible for the rise to prominence of Edmonds and Cheggers. Thanks a bunch, BBC.
And let's not for get, Lenny Henry and Chris Tarrant!

Probably less said the better about "Your letter was only the start of it..."
 
I do actually - having worked over there for a while the ones I met were charming, eloquent, hospitable and extremely funny.

There were some dullards too but not many (which was nice)

Imagine if we were judged solely by the actions of Tony Blair...
 
I have always called people from the USA Americans. What do people from the USA refer to themselves as?

Generalisations will always make the people that use them look dumb. I have learned this lesson a few times!
 
Retro Cat":2p2wobrn said:
I do actually - having worked over there for a while the ones I met were charming, eloquent, hospitable and extremely funny.

There were some dullards too but not many (which was nice)

Imagine if we were judged solely by the actions of Tony Blair...

I can barely express how glad I am that both Blair and Bush are gone. :shock:
Both of them should be jailed IMO.
 
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