In Our Lifetime: Reflections on Change.

Image: found on internet.

When I posed a question to the Twitterverse, asking what people thought had changed in our lifetime, the replies were swift and sharp. The list — a blend of sadness, anger, and bemusement — felt like a roll call of disillusionment. At 51, I find myself increasingly baffled by the world I’ve grown up in, a world that feels both alien and unsettling. As I look around, I often think: I don’t recognise London anymore. It grieves me to my bones. Here’s why…

Sex Is Changeable

Transgender ideology is perhaps the defining weirdness of our age. Biology, the most fundamental and observable science, has been upended by ideology. If you can convince people that sex is mutable — that the binary truths of male and female are just a spectrum of self-perception — then you can make them believe anything. And they have. The absurdity runs deep: pronouns, gender-neutral toilets, and even the erasure of words like women in favour of tortured phrases such as ‘people who menstruate’. When did we agree to this mass delusion? We didn’t. It was foisted upon us, and dissent — like biology itself — is swiftly cancelled. Well, it’s bollocks, if I may (still) be permitted to say so.

‘Diversity Is Strength’

‘Diversity is Strength’ is the kind of Orwellian mantra that makes you question your own sanity. We are told, with relentless fervour, that it is self-evident. But is it? Diversity in and of itself is not inherently a weakness or strength. What we have seen in practice is that this ideology has often sown confusion and division rather than unity. And, after all, how could diversity result in unity? Think, people! We’re not a melting pot anymore; we’re a collection of siloed identities competing for moral high ground and we’re being gaslit about the whole shebang.

Ethnic Change of London

In 2021, white people became the minority ethnic group in London. Should this statistic be an issue? At the least, the speed of change and the refusal to discuss its implications are serious issues. Critics are silenced with cries of racism, but the reality is that rapid demographic shifts inevitably alter culture and cohesion. London’s identity has morphed into something unrecognisable from my childhood. The cost of this transformation is rarely discussed.

BCE and CE

Goodbye BC and AD; hello BCE and CE. This change was perfidious and unnecessary. BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini) were not just markers of time but cultural anchors. The switch to BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) feels like yet another erasure of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Why was this done? To appease secularists? To avoid offending non-Christians? It’s a change nobody asked for, yet here it is — another quiet rewriting of history.

Indoctrination in Schools

Once upon a time, schools taught children how to think. Today, they teach them what to think. British education has become a breeding ground for ideological indoctrination. Critical thinking is out; conformity is in. Whether it’s the uncritical acceptance of gender ideology, the vilification of British history, or the obsession with climate apocalypse, children are fed narratives, not tools for discernment. As Chairman Mao once pronounced, ‘all work in school is for changing the thinking of the student’. The erosion of education is deliberate, ensuring the next generation is pliable, not perceptive.

The Inversion of the term ‘Nazi’

The word ‘Nazi’ used to have a clear meaning: a genocidal regime of unparalleled evil. Today, it’s casually applied to anyone who defends Israel’s right to exist. Jews, the victims of Nazism, are now labelled as Nazis for defending themselves against terror. The moral inversion is staggering, and the cheapening of such a loaded term is a tragedy in itself.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Remember the optimism when the Berlin Wall fell? The Cold War ended, and the world seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. It was a rare moment when humanity seemed to step forward.

The Music Goes On and On

Vinyl to cassettes to CDs to streaming. I’ve spent a fortune replacing my music catalogue multiple times. Now I’m back to vinyl because it sounds better.

The Cost of Everyday Items

Inflation has turned everyday purchases into luxuries. I remember a pack of cigarettes costing less than £2. A pack of Polo mints was 8p and pic ‘n’ mix sweets were half a penny each. Half a penny! Of course, there’s no such thing as a half-penny anymore. The price of living has skyrocketed, and wages have crept up, not keeping pace with the cost of housing, food, and — tragically — nostalgia. We certainly feel poorer.

Assisted Dying Ads on the Tube

Once, the London Underground was a place for whimsical ads about chocolate bars or theatre shows. Last year, it hosted advertisements for state assisted killing. The banality of evil is now plastered across tube carriages. The fact that this is seen as progressive is chilling.

Lockdown and Mandatory Face Masks

Lockdowns. Mandatory face masks. Injections. I’m still reeling from the audacity of it all. I went from initially aghast and speechless to writing and talking about little else for two years. Governments wielded unprecedented power, and we complied. The scars of that period are deep, and the lessons, I fear, have not been learned.

The Internet: The Double-Edged Sword

The internet promised liberation, and to some extent, it delivered. Information is at our fingertips, we carry powerful but tiny brains in our pockets and connections span the globe. But the dark side is undeniable. Social media, coupled with conformity, has become a weapon of mass manipulation. I can’t emphasise this enough. The algorithms know us better than we know ourselves. Once AI fully integrates, the potential for personalised propaganda and nudging (much less friendly that it sounds) will be terrifying. The internet is Pandora’s Box and the lid is off.

And Tomorrow’s World…?

Remember the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World? Suffice to say that its charming vision of hoverboards and robot butlers never materialised.

What will the next 50 years bring? If the past is anything to go by, brace yourselves. The only certainty is that it will be nothing like we’ve been promised.