Let’s Time-Travel the Recession Away!
“I did not have sex with that woman…..yet.”
It strikes me that in this time of doom and gloom, extreme measures are needed. I will outline my plans in this post.
After a disappointment in a project I am working on, my agent said, “If this were 2006, we’d be laughing”. She would be right, for things were doing fine in the publishing world. However, that aside I don’t think I’d like to go back to 2006. I don’t want Bush or Blair back in power. And I was off work sick for 8 weeks that year. It wasn’t exactly brilliant.
That considered, my agent got me thinking. Question 1: What would be the best year to go back to? And Question 2: How can we get there?
It is possible that I have to answer question 2 before we even let the answer to Question 1 cross my mind. But I’m a cart before horse kind of person, as those who know me will happily testify.
First off, which years are definitely out:
1936- You don’t really need me to tell you why. Good year for Hitler, sucked for everyone else. And there was no internet, rock music and mobile phones, so, rubbish all round.
1979- Punk was over, Thatcher was in, Bee Gees were gearing up for world domination. Effectively the next six years are out completely. Unless you are Olivia Newton John, in which case, off you go, love.
2001- The nightmare begins. You could go back to this year, but only to sprinkle a whole tub of high powered laxative in the curry of 19 guys with an early wake-up call for a flight they were catching the next day. Otherwise, it’s not a good year for anyone but George W Bush and his daddy..
Me? I’m plumping for 1997. This was the first year of my marriage. But that’s not the reason, Meeester is still here, with genetic accoutrements (Indy and Junior). No, this was the year when everyone thought everything was going to be OK.**
1. Clinton hadn’t dropped his trews too much and we thought he was a cool guy.
2. John Major was sent back to the circus and we didn’t realise what a shower we’d elected, we just thought they were shiny and smiley. Not lizards.
3. There was no XFactor and Pop Idol, and music seemed to be made by real folk with actual talent. Except the Spice Girls. But they don’t fit in with my argument, so I’m ignoring them. Much the same as I did in the actual year itself.
4. Banks weren’t cold calling folk straight out of the telephone directory offering them 40 times their annual salary if they could confidently sign their name with an X, even if it was with a pencil in their mouth.
5. Dolly the sheep made us all feel sciencey. Surely hover cars and Mars colonisation were only months away!
6. The UK won the Eurovision Song Contest! With an American and a shit song, but we didn’t care! Go us!
7. Scotland gets its own parliament. And we’re quite chuffed. Of course, then we didn’t realise that the blighters were going to make booze insanely expensive. We thought it was going to be running down the streets freely available to anyone with an empty cup handy.*
8. Some NASA stuff happened that made us go “Woooh!” and when we finally removed our fingers from our eyes, it didn’t blow up, making us go “Awwww”. Nasa can’t even afford to have their Christmas party this year.
9. Radiohead release OK Computer.
10. My wisdom teeth hadn’t come through yet.
Now, onto the mechanics of the thing. Right, who’s got a copy of Back to the Future. Doc says something about a flux capacitor…will get one of those at B&Q, will be in the Hardware aisle and I’m sure I’ve got some plutonium left over in the shed….hang on… it’s here somewhere!…..
Will get back to you on my progress…..
*There’s a team of people scouring campaign leaflets from that year trying to prove this was one of Alex Salmond’s election promises. Just you wait Alec, we’ve got you, I just know it!
**OK, things were not OK for Princess Di and Gianni Versace, but ah well….good looking corpse and all that…ho hum, them’s the breaks!
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
I am a timelord
Like Dr Who, Marty McFly, Hiro Nakamura, Henry Detamble and Sam Tyler before me I gained access to a time long forgotten and joined the ranks of the Time Travellers.
‘Cept they are fake made up ones and I am the real deal.
It’s only happened the once, but I look forward to it happening again, and am preparing myself to be transported back and forwards in time like nobody’s business. I am also particularly pleased to one of the world’s first female time travellers.
Let me tell you what happened.
I was filming on a diving vessel yesterday. After having my safety induction I was led downstairs past the diving capsules where the divers were in SAT. All very high tech, computery and interesting. There was no mistaking it; I was firmly in the 21st century.
“That’s the Tea-shack over there,” my companion said as he left me to find my own way to the rest of my film crew who had come on board an hour before me.
On reflection, I wonder if the accompanying safety guy knew what would happen to me, or whether I have been a time traveller all along and this is the first massive manifestation of my talents. Whatever it was, it hit me like a thunderbolt.
I opened the door which may have been, in actual fact a WORMHOLE to the 1970s….
Once inside I knew something weird had happened, that something wasn’t quite right.
I looked around me. There were kitsch antique porno calendars on every wall; the like I hadn’t seen since I went to visit my Dad’s work as a schoolchild in a shipbuilding company in Glasgow. Gosh, they took me back. The hair! The unfeasibly large and pendulous boobies! The industry standard on-all-fours-on-wet-sand position!
Three men were in the room. One used the unmistakable vernacular of the past, “Hello, Doll”.
Wow! Where was I?
The banter between the three was like something out of a British television show that I might have watched as a child, if my parents let me stay up late. Something like the “Sweeney” mixed with “On the Buses”, but with men in their late fifties instead of Denis Waterman or John Thaw when he was a bit sexy and shouty. Mind you one bloke did look a bit like Blaikie so the “On the Buses” thing actually does work. But without Olive. No ladies present, y’see. It’s the Seventies; they ain’t allowed. Except me, I was there, but I was from the future, so I don’t count.
Anyway, as my head was whirling round trying to come to terms with what on earth had happened to me, I spotted a fantastic piece of antique retro art that confirmed the era for me straight away.
It was a table, handmade with such craftsmanship and loving attention to detail that it made me weep for the future Ikea flatpack, mass-produced grip on the 21st century. How had we gone from one-off pieces of genius like this magnificent item, to a world where every office looks the same, every home a copy of the one next door.
“You like wor table, lass?”
Ooh… more vernacular!
“Yes, I do”
“Lorra work went into that”, they laughed.”Lotta time at sea…”
The table top was an intricate collage of naked women. Page three girls, favourite soft porn stars, busty ladies, jugs akimbo…every pose imaginable. I believe they call this art “decoupage” and this was an exceedingly fine example from history. Would I go back to the future and see the son or daughter of one of these men present it on “Antiques Roadshow”? How thrilling!
Or would this piece of Seventies memorabilia end its days in a landfill never to be seen again like so many works of art from the decade that time tried to forget.
Except that here I was, looking at it, touching it; a rogue visitor to the past unable to snatch it away back to the future as a memento to prove my time-traveling abilities to any doubters, for fear of ruining the time/space continuum.
It would be the ideal piece of evidence to say, “I was there! I traveled back in time!”
But you all believe me, don’t you?
