50 Years of Cars

At a family gathering, we were trying to remember which cars we'd each owned in the past 5 decades. It wasn't conclusive but we remembered most of them. I'll kick this off with the fact that I passed my driving test in a Morris Marina.

There were four of us. At some point, everyone had owned a Ford. One was a Z-back Anglia which had so much rust that large stickers of Magic Roundabout characters were holding it together! There were also Cortinas, Escorts, a Ford Fiesta and at least two Ford Sierras. At one time, two of us drove a Sierra 4x4 to Cannes, Côte d'Azure; apparently this model wasn't available in France at the time and some local car enthusiasts stopped us to chat about it. Oh, and a Galaxy MPV.

We've all had Triumphs, too - in fact, three of us owned the same blue estate car. Other Triumph models included a Toledo, Dolomite and a TR7. Alpha Romeo's AlphaSud was another car that passed from one of us to another - at only 3 or 4 years old, it had more rust than the ancient Ford Anglia mentioned earlier. We followed this with an Alpha Romeo Giulietta. Another Italian car we had was a Lancia Thema, which was brilliant - they stopped making right-hand drive Lancias at some point.

We had a Saab Aero 9000. Whatever it was, it looked amazing but I hated it. The leather seats were so smooth that I kept sliding down, despite wearing a seatbelt. That didn't last long, either.

Our older cars included Austin Mini, Mini Clubman and an Austin 1100. At one point, I even owed a small generic van but couldn't tell you what make/model it might have been - I didn't have it for long. 

Onto Vauhall: the first was a Vauxhall Viva in the 1980s, which I owned for one week and it was so awful that I then swapped it for another car. It's been almost 30 years since I bought a Frontera repplaced by a top-of-the-range Vauxhall Carlton Estate (our second Carlton). More recently, I owned a Vauxhall Astra and a Mokka. 

We've had a few 'Asian' cars: Mazda 626 (also owned by 2 other familly members), Toyota MR2, Nissan 300ZX Sport, a Honda Civic, a Mazda RX7, Toyota MPV plus three Lexus SUV hybrids. We also ownedan American brand - a Grand Cherokee.

British cars not yet mentioned: We've had a classic Jaguar MkII, a very old Range Rover, a Discovery, and two Freelanders. 

I've only ever bought one French car, it's an electric Peugeot e208, my current car. 

German cars: we've had a couple of VW Golfs, a Scirocco, a Mercedes 300SL, an Audi TT, three BMWs (3 series soft top, 5 series and X5) and, yes, my other car is a Porsche (Cayenne). 

It's CHRISTMAAAAS!

For so many generations,  it's great to see Noddy Holder return to the limelight every December. Slade's Number One hit from 1973, Merry Christmas Everbody, is still played relentlessly at joyous festivities throughout the UK, 50 years on. Who would have predicted that? Maybe Bing Crosby? Written by Irving Berlin, White Christmas was recorded by Bing Crosby in 1942, during WWII, and is still in the Christmas charts every year.

The leading contender for the 2023 Christmas Number One in the music charts is  Last Christmas by Wham, from 1984, presumably referring to Christmas 1983 which was 40 years ago and the same year that Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth reached No. 3 in the charts, a collaboration by David Bowie with Bing Crosby, six years after it was recorded, just a month before Crosby's unexpected death.

In the 2023 race, the leader is is closely followed by The Pogues with Kirsty McColl's A Fairytale of New York, released 1987. 

These are all great songs which we are happy to sing along to year after year yet, with the exception of Noddy Holder, the people who sang the main lyrics are no longer around. We're so lucky that they left us their voices to listen to every year.

If your favourite isn't listed, put it in thecomments!  

Merry Christmas, Everybody. 

Beebopalula

Nostalgia: Working in the 1970s & 1980s

In 1977, I was learning to write programs using a teletype (a big step from punched cards); I was good at Basic, reasonable at COBOL, not so great at Fortran. I loved working in the I.T. department (tho' it wasn't called that in those days); my colleagues were far better programmers than I was but I was very good at specifying requirements for specific needs of management so I moved into Management Information Systems. This involved specifying the program interface and training staff in using it. Good as it was, a similar opportunity arose in another division of the company which offered much more money plus a company car.

It was around 1982. I got the job, sold my lovely old TR7 (bright yellow) and was supplied with a brand new Ford Sierra (a car that had only just been launched!) 

It was a great job; I had to procure (or specify) software for a number of small business applications (e.g. estate agents) so that the sales people could entice these buyers with our multi-user desktop compter system. I had to prepare marketing materials, write instruction manuals and train the clients (hence the company car).

So - what happened next? IBM took the world a step backwards by launching their single user Personal Computer. The first time the acronym 'PC' was used in this context. And the company I worked for decided to relocate. 

Although I'd only been there a year and the company provided me with a car, a daily commute further south and across the Thames was too far to contemplate. They offered assistance for me to move house but I liked where I lived and didn't want to move 60 miles south-east. As luck would have it, I didn't need to.

I was approached by an ex-colleague who had heard of a new position opening up which he thought I'd be ideal for. Having said I was interested, I was invited for interview by my potential new employers. Of course I said yes but would be going on holiday in a week so could we meet before then? 'No problem' I was told. 'We'll send you the airplane tickets and book you into a hotel for a couple of nights, if that's OK'... 

While I was to be based locally, it turns out that the co-owners wanted to meet me and to show me their working environment before I came on board. So I flew to LAX, stayed overnight at an airport hotel then caught a flight to Las Vegas to meet everyone at a trade show (COMDEX), stayed overnight in Vegas, flew back to LAX then to LHR. I just had time to get home and pack for my holiday, as we were leaving the next day!

Yes, of course I got the job. It was possibly the best job I've ever had. Responsible for product support (mainly COBOL) to existing clients/resellers and marketing to build on the client-base throughout Europe, I loved it! Oh yes, my company car was a VW Scirocco (eventually replaced by a Toyota MR2).

I pretty much had autonomy in Europe and visited the company's selected dealers in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain... plus a couple of trips each year to Head Office in Los Angeles. Wow, I know I was lucky and enjoyed every minute of it. Business increased sufficiently to expand the team so I employed a better programmer for product support (whew!) and a marketing assistant. I also recommended an experienced salesman (an ex-colleague) to sign up larger accounts.

Sadly, good times don't last forever. When the major co-owner died, the company was sold and incorporated by another one, which hadn't a clue how to run the business. Luckily, I was head-hunted by a rival company - but that's another story.

Falling on my Feet?

A 20-year career span and a dive into fairly recent history when changes were rapid. This is quite long so please feel free to stop reading if you get bored... 

Living in the London commuter area in the 1970s and 1980s, finding a job was easy. For me, anyway. A friend called me 'jammy' - and here's why. 

A clerical beginning.

I left school at 16, having failed biology but with passes in the other nine subjects, including English and maths, which were considered important by most employers. I landed a clerical role with a local branch of a national general insurance company. When the company was taken over and the branch relocated, I had enough experience to walk into a similar role at a branch of another insurance company. When this one was taken over and relocated, I secured a position in a newly opened UK HQ of an international life insurance group. All this in three years!

Over time, I had developed a well-rounded knowledge of all kinds of insurance and assurance administration and had also taken a part-time course of business studies at the local college so, when my employers asked me to work with the computer department (or IT these days) to ensure that their mundane procedures were being automated correctly for sharing data with the international HQ and to provide analyses for actuarial databases, of course I agreed. Having done this, I decided to switch careers. There was currently no role for me within the computer department within the company so, after four enjoyable years, I left.

A switch to technical.

A week later, I walked back into the same building! Same door, different floor. A multi-national technology company needed temporary assistance for a few months. Unfortunately, I completed the project in under six weeks so I had to look for another job... until I didn't. My temporary boss called me in for a discussion, told me they'd like to keep me on and asked what I would  like to do. We settled on a mix of computer programming and data analysis. An exciting job, more money, plus opportunities to travel to associated  offices in Brussels, Paris and Stuttgart. Being an American-owned company, I didn't even have to be fluent in other languages. Did someone mention 'jammy'?

Of course, my record of having the rug pulled from under continued and, after two years, I was 'absorbed' into another part of the group. Not so bad a transition, though. Same location, different boss, similar job but with a different focus. Then, when the inevitable office relocation came, it was even better. During this time, computer input moved from teletype to screen-based, which gave me a wider role - learning how to use the new stuff and training other staff. For example, the typing pool moved from electric typewriters to Wang word-processing.

I can't remember the reason I transferred to another part of the group - I think it may have been the offer of a company car! It was quite a commute  to the new office - an hour each way - but the company supplied the car so fair enough. It was also two pay grades above my previous job and promised to be really interesting. Remember that I travelled to Stuttgart a couple of paragraphs ago? Well, that site had begun manufacturing small computer networks - this was before IBM took the world a step backwards by launching the PC. My new job, as part of a small UK team, was to: source or specify software to run on these multi-user small business machines; help produce marketing/sales materials and, when a system was sold, train and support the first client. All this with a view to then training a team of support people throughout the UK, as the client-base grew. This came to an abrupt end with the introduction of the PC from the mighty IBM. The job was soon to change and - guess what - the department was to be absorbed and relocated another hour's drive away. No thanks.

Having kept in touch with my old boss from a year previously, I had mentioned this to him and, next thing I knew, he had spoken to another ex-employee of his who mentioned me to his current boss and I was asked if I would like to come for an interview. The office was less than half an hour's drive from where I lived, the job was a new role and I thought it might be interesting, so I agreed to the interview.

This next bit is the pinnacle of Jammy with a capital J. The interview was with the boss at the company's HQ in Palos Verdes, Los Angeles. They sent me a business class air ticket and booked me into a hotel at LAX for the first night. On arrival, there was a change of plan. The boss, Dave, decided that I should meet the whole team, who were currently in Las Vegas at a trade show, so had provided a ticket for the onward journey the next morning, where I was met by his assistant and taken to the venue. I think, at this stage, the job was mine to lose - why else would so much money be spend on an interviewee? 

Yes, I got the job and it was the best job anyone ever had. This was a small but highly regarded technical company that provided software to IBM and other top flight computer systems manufacturers. They had a tech team in the UK and had decided to increase their European presence by providing European clients with software support from the UK rather than the USA, and also to add marketing and sales. Reporting to Dave (co-founder of the company), I was responsible for all marketing and customer support throughout Europe. This included occasional trips to France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. to host or be a guest speaker at seminars and attend trade shows, basically answering questions about the products and the company. Of course, there were also trips to HQ in LA and the Las Vegas trade show. 

I was in heaven for four years until the other co-founder became terminally ill and - you've guessed it - the company was sold and marketing/support was absorbed into the new company's London office. I lasted three months before resigning. During that time, however, a software competitor wanted to open a UK office and, following an interview at their HQ in Germany, I was invited to set it up and run it. It seems that every cloud has a silver lining. I did this for two years but the recession was biting at the end of the 1980s and I knew that we could not endure losses for another year so I was honest with my German bosses, who I knew were under pressure to close some satellite offices. We agreed that, financially, the UK operation was currently non-viable and should be closed. This decision was not taken lightly as it meant redundancy for half a dozen people (including me) at a time of recession.

Marketing and Design.

Jammy days over, I was unable to find another job therefore I set up my own company, offering design and marketing services... but that's another chapter.

Review - Ready Player One - The Book

First of all, it's hard to believe that this is the author's first novel. Secondly - how will Ernest Cline follow that! Almost ten years later, we're still waiting to find out.

For anyone who is not a 'gamer', I'd recommend reading the book before trying the film. I was given this excellent advice because the book explains references to games in the story-line in a way that the film doesn't, because it's focusing on the action. Special effects are a substitute for imagination, I guess. I was totally absorbed in the book - and I'm one of those weird freaks who has never, ever played a video game and I have no intention of doing so.

The story is futuristic, set a couple of decades hence, but the over-riding theme is inspired by the 1980s. There are many references to that era to keep the interest of people born before then. Not just gamers and not just Americans - the story includes British and Japanese culture from around that decade. Rock and pop music, fantasy-world book authors, such as Terry Pratchett, plus many, many film references, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which made me smile - yes I remember the '80s.

The film, directed by Steven Spielberg, was released in 2018. I've not seen it yet but I have discussed it with a couple of people who have watched the film but not read the book... READ THE BOOK! If there is a downside, it's that the font size used in the book is minuscule. It's all small print that required me to use a combination of reading glasses and bright sunlight or, in the evenings, I tried a daylight torch and a magnifying glass - neither of which were ideal. And I don't have enough hands to use both and hold the book open and turn the pages.

It's a well-written book but the genre isn't for everyone. I loved it and I'm looking forward to watching the film in the near future.

---

p.s. I read Good Omens quite some time ago and recently watched the series on TV. And now I'm going to re-read the book...

♫ Dancing in the Dark Moonlight collection

Dancing in the Moonlight - Thin Lizzy (1977)
Dancing in the Moonlight - King Harvest (1973) & Top Loader (live)
Dancing in the Moonlight - Men Without Hats (synthetic pop)*
*Warning! Listen only if you need a migraine to pull a 'sickie' tomorrow

Dancing in the Dark (single) - Bruce Springsteen (live, Hyde Park, London, 2012)
'The Boss' is So Cool.

Dancing in the Dark - The Muppets

Recommended Music Blog: soundsandvision