Don't misunderstand me, I am sure Miss Venezuela is a worthy winner, what surprises me is that the Miss U contest is still going. This is another reminder to me that the certainties of my past often go up in smoke.
When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, the universal assumption was that beauty pageants were hangovers from the past and would certainly die out. In those days, everyone would have said beauty pageants just did not fit in a modern world and the new role of women in society.
Now, here we are, almost 50 years later, and TV shows are devoted to choosing the dress to be worn by Miss Australia in the contest. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose (excuse my French).
Another example of changes that never happened is the attitude to days like Anzac Day and November 11. In the sixties and seventies, the universal (there is that word again) opinion was that these were just days for old drunks to glorify war. Anyone who wanted to be modern would mock days like that. I remember a comedy show on ABC TV making a joke of lighting a cigarette from the Eternal flame in an RSL club.
But now, days like this are treated with more reverence than any religious practice. Many more people remember November 11th than November 2nd.
Which one of our "certainties" of today will disappear by 2050?
My prediction is that good handwriting will become more important in schools not less. Just wait until the first generation of school leavers who can't actually write leaves school and then there'll be backlash.
ReplyDeleteYou might be pleased to hear that of the people I met on the camino in France, two 20 something women from the US were the youngest. Every night, when the rest of us were writing blogs and checking our Facebook accounts, they were writing (yes, with a pen) in their diaries.
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