Fun in the BBC archives
Some of my highlights from the BBC Archives youtube channel. It's an amazing, huge resource.
Videos I particularly enjoy:
- all of them
- ones about The Future, ideally that 2025 has passed
- the 60s where you can tell things are shifting
A playlist of Past predictions. This is what the future used to look like, it says.
British Sundays, should we have more freedom? 1957. It's funny to look at things like this now. I don't care about 'observing' Sundays and in 1957 I'm sure I would have been campaigning against the restrictions. Then we get to 2025 and maybe we missed a trick on not having 24/7 everything all the time.
Life of a London family, 1958. Defies description.
The man with a home computer, 1961. A what now? 'Home computer' is playing in my head like the Peter Kay garlic bread sketch. Also, Teaching machines, 1965.
Men with long hair - harbingers of change? 1967. What's especially hilarious is many of these hairstyles would be considered completely average length now.
Eartha Kitt in Yorkshire, 1970. Eartha Kitt is a legend and this is great evidence of that. But also... those market scenes in 1970 seem so ancient.
Victorian teenagers reminisce, 1970. Two delightful ladies talking about their adolescence in the 1890s.
Seat belts becoming the law, 1983. It more or less instantly cut fatalities by a third, even when a lot of people already were. But some people were enraged by the idea they should wear a seat belt. Some thought it was actually more dangerous to. Even then it was only the front seats. I think about this a lot, how not all that long ago people were ambivalent if not hostile to seat belts.
Maya Angelou interview, 1985. Older interviews just have a nicer, slower pace and are often more in-depth. This is shorter but so charming.
The 2020 house of the future, 1988. What the future used to look like is always a fun time. Sometimes so close and yet so far. Walls are superconductors yet you'll not only have a separate radio but it'll be a massive thing requiring mains power. This is a kid's show, to be fair. The comments are a highlight here.