1970s house

I came across this clip from BBC Four's 1970s House while looking up other things. As usual with this format, this 21st century family living in (insert period) home is as predictable as ever. The period is distilled into a concentrated morass of fashion and technology that no one actually suffered under (a bit like running into the statistical "average man"). The producers forgot that most people even back then thought the decor and clothing foisted on them were pretty horrible and that however much some radio stations played it, rock and disco weren't as popular as we've been led to imagine in retrospect.

Our modern family aren't exactly Sapphire and Steel when it comes to time travel (did they get a look in?). They seemed less inclined to understand their parents' or grandparents' era than to whine about the primitive technology, lower living standards, and lack of properly enforced Newspeak directives. At least in the real 1970s the kids didn't grumble at their parents like they were flatmates. They had there own forms of demonic torments to unleash.

I found the conniption fit over the lack of central heating particularly amusing. Here in bleeding-edge technology Chez Szondy we turned off the central heating years ago and never looked back. The fireplace and oil-electric heaters do the job just fine and at half the cost. As for the real 1970s, we didn't have central heating, but we did have small coal-burning fireplaces in all the rooms, but they dated back to when they were installed in the age of Queen Victoria in a farmhouse that dated back to the Stuarts. History, BBC Four; they had that in the 1970s, too.

And they missed the obvious point that the Ford Cortina was a piece of rubbish even by the standards of the day.

As for the most egregious failing, I will not have the Teasmade mocked! Behold in all its true glory: