to think that modern life is utter shite

[OfCourse]

EVERYTHING is expensive; food, cars, houses, utilities, travel for work and the service is crap.

ANY GOVERNMENT PROVIDED SERVICE IS FUCKED; education, NHS, social welfare, police.

None of the above are in any particular order. Is it me? Am I just having a bad day?

SELL ME MODERN LIFE

Any bit of Africa in particular?

Just looked out the window. No doodlebugs today. Or Vikings. Black Death and Smallpox seems quite low right now too. I'm happy.

here in the UK I can turn the tap and drink safe clean water. I will never be bitten by a mosquito carrying a disease that will kill me. I have access to a toilet. All children get free education and no-one is shot on the journey for being a girl. The country is not ruled by religious nuts (Ok, we have some entrenched religion but we are allowed to ignore it). And no-one is dropping bombs on our heads.

yes, nowhere is perfect, and we certainly need to solve the big one of working people having to claim benefits rather than earning a decent wage. But that list is on my daily 'reasons to be cheerful'.

BTW where is it the norm for rents to go up 5-10% a year if you are in the UK?

Others may have said this but....
Many people have very difficult lives today. They struggle daily with no income, crap housing, drugs, crime etc
BUT that does not mean their lives would have been any better 100 years ago. It would have been worse. Their life expectancy would have been less than 50 and they'd have had no vote to change anything about it.
Life today has many issues but to think maybe it used to be better than this is naive.

Agree with PrivateJourney - our expectations have gone through the roof. My 70s childhood seemed very comfortable at the time - we had a large house in an affluent town, my mother was a SAHM, I went to a grammar school and on to university without thinking about it. We only had one car, never went abroad and my parents barely ever bought new stuff.

Now you'd have to be a hedge fund manager to afford my parents' home. You'd need five years of intensive tutoring to get into the grammar school, and the whole family would be weeping and wailing about an A amongst all the A*s wrecking one's university chances.

It's all so angsty and competitive now. And in my case (and a great swathe of the population's too) you know that your life is going to be lesser than one's parents'.

I agree sadly. My DH is so tired of it. He works physically very hard all week and we're still struggling. I work too but don't earn enough. We are leaving this country and we are starting again in Australia. Not saying it's perfect out there but we can get a much nicer house and some land too. We hope to be self sufficient as soon as possible.

Maybe we could vote on whether life is better now? I vote yes. As you're all women you can't vote so the result is 100% yes!

I think modern life is great. Things are expensive but food is cheaper than it has ever been. A lot of people struggle to make ends meet, and that is something I would like to see change. But their lives wouldn't have been better 100 years ago, they'd have been a lot worse sadly.

I think it's our expectations that are wrong really, not the actual quality of life. We expect and desire a higher quality of life than ever before and we struggle when we can't afford it. Or certainly that's how I experience it.

Wow really? Are you London based currently? We looked and would get a lot less for our money. Property in Australia is v expensive, as is health care, food etc. Only way I can see it being cheaper is if your e in London now, in which case moving out to rural countryside in the UK would do the same (esp rural Scotland or Wales.)

The NHS saved my baby's life, it was there for our family when we needed it and for that I will be forever grateful.

Modern life is terrible.
Its all falling apart and we treat each other terribly.
No Christian values, your neighbour will stab you in the back, to get that job, because they have to , to survive. It's a dog eat dog world.

And its all war, politicians expenses, Jimmy Saville.

Really quite depressing !!

In the 80's I spent my whole summer holiday riding around on my bike and came home for my dinner.

Agree with PrivateJourney and Brenda.

Brenda my lifestyle is a lot higher than that of my parents. I grew up on a massive council estate and now have the large house in a good area. Lots of my friends have been upwardly mobile compared to their parents.

YANBU. I think life is a struggle these days.

Oblomov, why would that have to be different now? That's pretty much how DS1 spent this summer.

Zillionaire, me too but I do doubt that it will happen for my DCs and their peers.

I wouldn't go back. While nothing's perfect modern life in this country is fab.

People are generally better educated and have more rights.

Houses are much better maintained and heated and with all of those lovely time saving.

Basic needs are met better and intervention if not.

Medical advances- the NHS saved my nephews life.
people look younger and are mostly healthier.

We can travel to anywhere in the world and can experience so many different things .

Opportunities are there for all, not the select few.

We have a lot more disposable income- my mum had to tip up her wages and was given pocket money until she left home.

We all have a wardrobe full of clothes and shoes for all occasions.
Nobody hasn't got shoes or has to share clothes.

Historical places and national parks are protected.

I can buy a huge selection of food and not think having jam on my bread is a luxury.

You can either whinge about it or just enjoy all the many benefits.

I have the right to vote, I have the right to work, or not work, I have the right to free education and free healthcare, I have the right to travel and experience other countries w - can't think of a single thing wrong with any of that

My 70s childhood seemed very comfortable at the time - we had a large house in an affluent town, my mother was a SAHM, I went to a grammar school and on to university without thinking about it.

Indeed, in the 1970s, everyone had large houses in an affluent town. Well, except for the poor people. Everyone's mother was at home to cook them their tea. Except for the poor people. And everyone went to grammar school and then university except for, well, around 92% of the population.

So from this we conclude that being in the top 10% of the income distribution in a developed country is pretty comfortable. That's worth knowing.

It's crap. And it's going to get crapper. BTW you missed out environmental Armageddon which apparently no one cares enough about to do anything.

I would have died from cervical cancer. Err modern life is good (ish)

Private it's hard to know how our DC's lives will turn out.

bar for Roman and Greek days (which I quite have a yen for) the past is

complete and utter SHIT

death penalty
women cant vote
high likelihood to die in childbirth
no washing machines
no hairdryers, no straighteners
widespread slavery
medieval times, all of it. GRIM
more wars
witch burning

need I go on?

What would be your alternative, OP? The first 8 years of my life were in a home with an outside toilet, no hot running water, open fires in living rooms and bedrooms, weekly ablutions in a zinc bath in front of the fire. My mum's early morning routine started with clearing the chamber pots, then, from Oct to March, clearing the ash from the grates, before laying and lighting the fires, so my gran and I got up to warm(ish) rooms - great fun for Mum when there was ice on the inside of the windows. No washing machine, everything washed, rinsed then mangled and line dried. I also clearly remember visiting relatives in Wales in the 50s who had a two-holer at the bottom of their garden; they got water from a pump in the yard. Yep, modern times are right hard in comparison.

and cancer, thnaks LEM

suspect a third of this thread would have died ifthis was 100 years ago

I really like the fact that:

it is illegal to pay me less than a man for the same job
it is illegal to turn my mother away from somewhere on account of being Asian
it is illegal to discriminate against my sister and her female partner

Oh, and my lovely daughters are expected to be good at maths and science.

All of these are rather recent developments.

Incidentally, I'm not quite sure why it's 'all Jimmy Savile' these days - his heyday was the 1970s and 1980s, surely!