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A bag of Monster Munch declares the spirit of the age

22 April 2009

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Rachel Johnson celebrates the return to the rubbish holidays, bad cars and basic food of the 1970s. Scrimping is more fun than splurging

Ah, back to basics. All this tells us, so much more than any opinion polls, that New Labour is toast, and the Conservatives will soon be voted the best thing since sliced bread, because when it comes to outstanding prequels (and remember, we’ve all just been fainting with pleasure as we recall the 30-year anniversary of Thatcher), it’s the Tories that always get the Oscar.

This weird wormhole of a moment we’re in is a reminder that this country has never really gone for change for change’s sake, and still holds dear the days when, yes, things — especially cars, especially my father’s Opel Kadett — were a lot more crap than they are now, but they were also a whole lot less nasty and consumerist. So all the evidence points one way. We are to boldly go forward to the past, not back to the future. Remember what is says on the packet of pickled onion Monster Munch, and mark my words. Old is the new new.

Here’s football’s Glenn Hoddle on the 1980s, before I rest my case. ‘I didn’t live in a massive house — we had a modern three-bedroom house on an estate, and only later would move to a bigger country house in Epping,’ he said. ‘At the time, I was driving around in a snazzy sponsorship car — a pale green metallic VW Scirocco — and life felt pretty good.’

And so it does. Life feels pretty good, in a you-never-had-it-so-bad kind of way.

We have the Passat to prove it.

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Patricia

April 23rd, 2009 1:32pm Report this comment

I remember the late 1970s very well; driving a battered, oil-dripping Rover 2000, bangers and mash with no wine on a Saturday night, buying clothes from the Thrift Shop, counting the cost of every item in my head as I walked around the supermarket and then there was the year the baby didn't have a Christmas present. I don't recollect having much fun in those days, I just remember feeling that life was a drag.

Scrimping is only fun when you don't really have to.

Roger Carr

April 24th, 2009 9:42am Report this comment

"Scrimping is only fun when you don't really have to." (Patricia)
But Rachel tends to make one forget that whilst reading here... Enjoyed it!

anna

April 24th, 2009 10:09am Report this comment

I love the Michael Fish quote! Only in The Spectator could you find someone thinking that poverty means struggling to pay TWO sets of prep-school fees.

David Short

April 24th, 2009 10:20am Report this comment

This Polly Filler stuff does not belong in the Spectator, even if she is the sister of a former editor.

Roger Inkpen

April 26th, 2009 10:32am Report this comment

"This Polly Filler stuff".

Presumably Ms Johnson is trying to get into Private Eye with "old is the new new"

David Short

April 29th, 2009 3:10pm Report this comment

Roger Inkpen, yes, I noticed that 'new new', too. Very PE.

I have created a list of what you'd expect in a Polly Filler column. The background always is a 'sort of' female journalist (one who has never been a reporter, has no journalistic qualifications or experience, and has probably never been anywhere more dangerous than the wrong end of Notting Hill), she works from home, is married to someone who can support a privileged middle-class lifestyle with a wife working from home (therefore a banker or somesuch), and has a nanny.

She will mention some or all of the following in her column: husband (often disparaging said person), nanny, children/babies, Tuscany, Cotswolds, and so on.

Which is how the Polly Filler column came about. But now it's beyond parody. It reflects reality.

This column ticks the husband, Tuscany and Cotswold boxes, thought to be fair to RJ, she has worked for a newspaper. She got taken on by the FT straight from university.

But then again how many non-metropolitan, unconnected, comprehensive-educated, strove and won an Oxbridge place, woman graduate ever achieved that?

Harriet Harman, you know nothing.

Sara-Jane Brown

April 30th, 2009 1:38pm Report this comment

Loved the article, it's so true.
I would list the bands from eras past that are re-forming but I don't think there would be the space.
And as a Butlins employee I can tell you that our sales are significantly up. Although I would disagree that it's just to do with nostalgia: We've invested millions in our Resorts over the past few years, to give families what they want from thier holidays.

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