'Cos past your eyes is best

Some things about the 1970s are best forgotten

In a wide-ranging interview, actor Brian Cox remarks that the 1960s were exciting because people from low-income backgrounds had routes into professions like his, and into many others previously restricted to the prosperous classes. These routes are no longer available, and our society is correspondingly boring as a result

In his series about the Union that comprises our Kingdom, David Olusoga points out that, in economic terms, the UK reached 'peak equality' in the 1970s, when the spread between the wealth and income of the richest and that of the poorest was at its minimum in the nation's history. Since then, the gap has rapidly widened. He leaves open the question of whether this is a direct result of active political choices, or whether the politicians we have got are merely the consequence of wider social and economic trends, like flotsam washed up by the tides of history

What he is emphatic about is that, from the perspective of history, the unequal society we now find ourselves in is not some peverse deviation from the natural order of things. Rather, it is the period from 1945 to the 1970s that represents an exceptional divergance from the long-term norm; a brief moment in the sun that slipped from our grasp (a regression kicked off by a war in Israel-Palestine) 

The apple juice formed a shallow layer of sediment, leaving the juice itself bright and crisp. We racked it off into recycled bottles and pasteurised them - 25 minutes at 75 degrees, 14 bottles at a time. After two batches we were out if bottles, with just enough juice left to fill a 4.5 litre demi-john, which is now fermenting on the kitchen floor. Yuletide good cheer