watching through a colander

Uncivil Still @Uncivil_S
"BBC say you can use a colander for the pin-hole thing, to see #eclipse.
Wife's just gone into the garden wearing the colander on her head..."
www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/solar-eclipse-2015-viewers-mock-5368113

This is a REAL great shot!
(Probably it will never end in explore but nevertheless is a masterpiece in its genre).

(I found some pretty old documentaries about London on youtube... so good to see! - there is one about Piccadilly Circus in 1958 which is more or less like I saw it the first time (1969)
Curious how the speaker has a completely different accent and intonation from the speakers of today... I guess English people don't talk like that any more, do they?)

I don't know which video you watched, Skipper,
but this is how we don't speak any more (unless you're upper crust):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-su9tq_-OJQ

You must be very good with your English if you can spot the different accents.

And here are the Piccadilly Lights in the good old days:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2621314/Amazing-animation-compiled-using-50-year-old-images-shows-Piccadilly-Circus-looked-like-1961-complete-neon-Coca-Cola-sign-cigarette-billboard.html

You should have clicked the "reply" link below my comment. I was puzzled because I could not see any answer from you in my page. I thought you were ill or on holidays... Good that today I had the idea of checking...

Yes, I saw the first video you mention and I'm going to see the other one... thanks for telling me.

I also watched this one (which for me was very interesting):

youtu.be/xUdoi_aTx1Q

(I think there the accent is even more old fashioned)

Two things stroke me in this last video: as you can see the camera shows lots of people in the streets, even crowds, and two things are missing there which are very common today: immigrants and fat people! It seems that you English people were all slim and tall! Well it's not a joke, today in all Europe and America you see plenty of fat and even obese people everywhere, and this is the consequence of a dramatic change in the nutrition habits, all those high caloric snacks were unknown at that time... about immigrants I guess you had the big first wave in the sixties because I remember there were a lot of them in London the first time I went there in 1969...

"You must be very good with your English if you can spot the different accents."

My spoken English sucks -today - for lack of practice - but according to some people I met when I was in England in my youth, it wasn't so bad. Anyway even if my knowledge is limited I have attended enough English speaking people from different countries and regions to spot some main differences in their accent, which by the way can be huge ones!

Sorry, Skipper, I must have forgotten the reply button.

Thank you so much for the link. That is the best 50s London film I have seen yet, and I will put the link beneath some of my other oldie shots. It makes me very sad to see how our once-beautiful city has been destroyed by modern architecture and general tackiness.

Regarding obesity: they say that nutrition was much better during the war, when there was rationing! Sugar rationing ended in 1953, and the parents fed their children on jam and puddings, and gave them money for sweets. Even so, most children didn't get fat, because they were always running around, playing on the streets or climbing trees. But modern children play on their computers instead and live on a diet of pop and crisps. Same when they get older: they can just get a pizza or other convenience food from the shop. People couldn't afford that back in the 50s.

Mass immigration from the Caribbean started around 1948, but they tended to collect in certain areas. London and Oxford are very multiracial, whilst some towns (such as Plymouth) are still mostly white. We also have a big Asian community in Oxford, and now the Polish are starting to settle here. Not to mention students from all over the world.

With summer coming, the pavements are getting blocked with large groups of tourists. If you want to get past, you must either step into the road or barge through with elbows stuck out!

" Even so, most children didn't get fat, because they were always running around, playing on the streets or climbing trees."

You are the first person whom I hear saying that, I thought that nobody cared about this problem. I spent my childhood and boyhood just like that, because we lived in the outskirts of the city and we had plenty of space and countryside to play around. I really had a fantastic time and -now I realize - a very special one. After my generation a huge change happened, children stopped playing in the streets, gardens, etc., both because there was no more space or it was dangerous. I remember I wondered "what kind of people they will become when they'll be grown up if they never had the chance to really play..." Our society is concerned with a lot of rights but I think very few people are concerned with the indispensable right of the children to have space to play, at least in my country (luckily you have gardens and parks in your cities). To me this is a sign of total blindness. Now here they have all of a sudden became "fond" of dogs, a real mania, not something healthy, and of course they keep them in flats! At my time everybody knew that dogs are not born to live in flats... anyway the council started to create some special spaces with fences for dogs where they can run free, just in the middle of the traffic! But the missing thing here is that nobody thought to create spaces for children. Do you think this is a healthy society?

I don't know about where you live, but in England there are plenty of green spaces for children to play, even in the cities. The problem is that parents are scared to let the young ones out on their own, for fear they might be abducted; and the older ones simply don't know HOW to play any more. They've been sat in front of a TV since they were babies, so they don't know how to make their own entertainment.

Back in the 50s and 60s, TV programmes didn't start till around 5pm, and mothers were busy with the housework (not so many gadgets then), so children went outside to play. It was normal for kids as young as three to play out on the street. You knew where your boundaries were (don't go past the end of the road), and you were quite safe, because other children would be out there too, and all the mothers watching out for everyone else. Then when you were older, you were allowed to go a bit further, as long as you kept together and said where you were going.

We invented our own games, with a ball, skipping rope, roller skates etc, or just playing 'let's pretend'. But nowadays you could put kids in a nice playspace and they wouldn't know what to do, except smash it up or spray paint all over it.

No, it's not good to keep dogs in flats if there is nowhere nearby to exercise them. We are lucky to have plenty of natural areas where dogs can run free. It's the children's play parks that have fences round them, to keep the dogs out!

Yes, all you say corresponds to my experience here... so we are the last generation to know what a real childhood was... today's children or young people can't even imagine what they have missed!

We are lucky too that we didn't grow up in the previous centuries, where many children had no childhood at all, having to work (in England) long hours in factories or climbing chimneys. And in some countries child labour still goes on today.

Here's a wonderful example of the English accent in those days!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI8D1DmJTlE

Oh yes! Very typical, and probably the same of some other documentary I saw. I have to say that to me it's very easy to understand because each word is pronounced clearly and plainly.
On the contrary there is one kind of accent/pronunciation in today Britons which I find very difficult, I call it "cracking English" because it sounds like the cracking of small fireworks. Most of the words are cropped and you only hear single syllables difficult for me to put together. One example is this bloke here, who I know well because I've watched several boat tests made by him: youtu.be/ub22bhf3TYo despite having heard him speaking a lot of times I still can't follow his whole speech, understanding only single words here and there...

Now, I'm curious to know: which part of England is he from? And which class? Dealing with yachts he could be upper class (or upper crest as you call it), or upper middle class, but that does not fit with my experience.