Living in the Britain of today!

Today is the Summer Solstice. A day when a large number of eccentrics get up before dawn, travel to Stonehenge to witness the dawn.
Back in 1965 when I was 10, there was a comic that I read avidly. It was called TV 21 and it was a printed “spin off” or derivative of the TV puppet series “Thunderbirds”. Remembering those puppets is for those of us “over a certain age” is a cringing memory!
One thing that does not cause me to cringe is when I recall to mind that ten year old boy’s thoughts of what will it be like to live in the 21st Century.
To a ten year old boy, “next month” seems to be an age away, let alone “next year”. Thus “the next century” was something in the far distant future. Yet, today I am living near the end of the second decade of the 21st Century.
Many of the developments found in that cringe making children’s Sc-Fi series have been exceeded. Take for instance the latest smart phones. Yet again, hypersonic nuclear powered aircraft are not to been seen in our skies! Happily! – Although I’d give an awful lot to enjoy watching the indignant fury of a certain Caroline Patricia Lucas the Member for Brighton Pavilion witness one flying overhead!
But then the comic was relating the adventures in 2065 (not 2018) of a certain Lady Penelope Creighton Ward who again to the utter horror of Ms Lucas was driven around in a chauffeur driven gas turbine powered, six wheeled, 200+ mph Rolls Royce the size of a 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood sedan!
What this demonstrates of course is the linear type preoccupation with the technology, merely extending it without developing the society using it. Thus we find ludicrously archaic portrayals of life today from the imaginations of the Victorians/Edwardians where you had the aristocratic society of the time using advanced technology that looked remarkable like it has been made there and then. This failing is not something today’s Sci-Fi writers have escaped from. The TV series “Star Trek” essentially takes the as it’s base the society (and issues) of the USA of the time it was written and adds the cloak of the 24th Century.
As to what that ten year old boy thought about his life might be with him approaching (but not as yet reaching) retirement age, I can tell you that he did not. He thought about lots of things. Which included how life might be in 2065. A time when he accepted he would be dead.
Had he had thought about it, he would NEVER have imagined – and he had quite an imagination – that a person would be arrested by the police for having a golliwog on the window ledge of the front room!
Happily – because “the birds and the bees” was a subject broached very differently in 1965 – he would NEVER have imagined a world in which two men would get married in church, or two women for that matter.
Furthermore, he would NEVER have imagined a UK in which one had to be careful what one said in order to avoid criminal prosecution for “hate speech”!
Which brings us to the topic illustrated by the image at the top of the article.
Racism!
There follows a PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT:
Readers are advised to take note of the following:
#1: My land-line telephone number is in the telephone directory.
#2: My land-line telephone number is registered with the telephone preference service not to receive unsolicited telephone calls.
#3: I persistently receive unsolicited telephone calls from the Asian subcontinent.
#4: As a result of #3 above, when I pick up the receiver I answer “Hello?”. If the caller at the other end has a south Asian accent and asks, “Is that Mr Peter Rogers”, I answer “No.” If the caller does not terminate the call at that point and goes on to ask, “Can I speak to Mr Peter Rogers?”, I replied, “Nobody works here with that name. You’ve got the wrong number.”
Now, such as Ms Lucas will be furious with your Editor for doubtless she will accuse me of racism. This is because I am assuming that any caller in possession of a South Asian accent is working for one of those organisations in India making such calls. This is true. I am. Does this mean that a person living in say, Wolverhampton, who decided telephone me for a genuine (non commercial) reason – they might be UIKIP member – would receive the aforementioned reply? The answer is Yes.
Is this racist?
Do I care?
Persons who are offended by this article/post are advised to contact Devon & Cornwall Police.
GOTO: https://www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/advice/threat-assault-abuse/hate-crime/