Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts!

For a while “at the end of the day” was my most hated phrase.  Everyone said it and often: on TV, on social media and in everyday conversation.  What made it so irritating is the build-up.  ‘At the end of the day’…  ooh and?  Somebody’s going to say something profoundly important next.  And?  Ugh is that all?  *sigh* they never do say anything important and that’s why I hate it.  It’s always a soggy let-down.

Now there’s a new kid in town and it’s that “everyone’s entitled to their opinion”.  Often, “at the end of the day” will be thrown in along with it, which is the ultimate in irritating double whammies!  It’s an expression used to protect opinions that should have been abandoned.  It is a stubborn declaration of “I can say what I want and think whatever I like”.  It is a tool used to close down a debate, when you have nothing left to say.

Of course, as long as your opinion isn’t offensive or abusive, you do have a right to hold it and to air it.  But there are different categories of opinion and whilst many of these opinions are merely tastes and personal preferences for which there is no right or wrong answer, some opinions depend upon facts.  It would be silly to argue about somebody’s opinion that red is the nicest colour or that pizza is the best food in the world.  Similarly, political persuasions, some ethical issues and thoughts on religion come with a wide spectrum of ideas and there’s plenty of scope to decide which of them are best suited to you.  There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer as to why you have a faith, why you’re a vegetarian or why you’re a socialist. 

There is usually a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ answer when it comes to factual opinions, particularly in the fields of medicine, economics, science and the judiciary, but thanks probably to Google we now have a blur between the first type of opinion (tastes, preferences, likes/dislikes) and the second type (factual opinion).  As it stands, laypersons have no entitlement to refute the professional opinion of immunologists, evolutionary scientists, geologists, climate change scientists or even engineers (who absolutely can tell you exactly why the twin towers collapsed on 9/11).  Laypersons will maintain that they have a right to hold whichever view they please (they may air their opinion that Mickey Mouse melted the polar ice caps if they wish), but they absolutely do not have the entitlement to demand that their view be respected or that it is of equal worth to a factual opinion.

I am not a stupid person by any means, but I have sense enough to know that I cannot argue about the age of the earth with a geologist who has studied and worked in the field for forty years.  Similarly, not ever having studied immunology at a university, if I wish to learn about the latest vaccine program issued to my children I know that the nation’s immunologists will have the answers I require.  Are the experts always right?  Of course not!  Are they right more often than ‘answers in genesis.com’ and ‘vaccination truth.org’?  One billion times YES!!! 

At one time we were respectful of our experts.  Today, Google has given every Joe Bloggs with barely a GCSE and a-level to rub together the same level of confidence in his opinions awarded to our most brilliant innovators and scientists.  “I’ve done my research,” Joe Bloggs will say with supreme conviction in his abilities to Google.  Well, no he hasn’t undertaken research as he (and I) aren’t equipped to research fields of expertise in which we aren’t educated.  We aren’t able to process the data, statistics and technical information as we’ve never studied immunology, geology or any of the (usually) scientific fields which seem to evoke a strong sense of objection and mistrust in the general public.  Joe Bloggs is often further handicapped by his inability to distinguish real science from pseudoscience and unfortunately for the modern world we live in, Dr Google, never thought to idiot-proof the monster he created.

Does “everyone is entitled to an opinion” simply mean that you have freedom of expression?  If so, yes you absolutely do and I will fight the corner of anybody who wishes to utter the dreaded, “vaccines cause autism”, even though it has been disproved more times than the sun revolving the earth.  Freedom of speech for me trumps the censorship of wrong speech, but what “everyone is entitled to an opinion” clearly can’t ever mean is that everyone’s opinion has equal claim to the truth.  There IS a right and a wrong where factual based opinion is concerned and 99.999% of the time, the experts have it in the bag.

The famous evolutionary biologist Dr Richard Dawkins refuses to debate with creationists who say the earth is 6000 years old and was created perfect and complete with humans living next door to dinosaurs (yes, a bit like the Flintstones).  His reasoning is that it would put creationism on an equal footing with real science and it shouldn’t be awarded this respect.  I think he’s right.  There aren’t two sides to a facts-based argument – there is only one side which has the truth. 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own ‘facts’.  

BULLY – The most bullied word in the English language?

This week is anti-bullying week.  It’s a week of campaigning and awareness raising by anti-bullying organisations.  Most adults understand the seriousness of bullying.  Some of us will have experienced bullying behaviour as a child, others will have experienced it in the workplace or online.  Sadly, many of us will also know the heartache of having a child experience the pain of being bullied.  Even if we have no personal experience, we will have read horrendous reports about children and teenagers who have committed suicide because they were being bullied at school or on social media.  We know it has considerable consequences, we know it is criminal and we expect our schools, workplaces and police force to take it seriously and act effectively to combat it.

We’re all aware that bullying is a serious problem, but what makes the issue harder for schools and the authorities to face is that the word ‘bully’ itself has taken on a life of its own and is being habitually overused to the point that it's meaning is lost.  We now find normal social behaviour such as mean comment, a difference of opinion, a full-blown argument, the end of a friendship and even good old fashioned ‘micky-taking’ is being called ‘bullying’.  Whilst none of these things are acceptable or nice, they do not in any way, shape or form constitute ‘bullying’.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines bullying as follows: “a person who uses strength or influence to harm or intimidate those who are weaker.”  Stompoutbullying.org elaborates by describing a bully as “someone who is habitually cruel or overbearing to others on a continual basis.”  Psychologists agree and confirm, “bullying is physical or verbal abuse that occurs repeatedly and involves a power imbalance: a person using social power or physical strength to dominate another.”

When I was young a “bully” was perfectly encapsulated in the form of Grange Hill character ‘Gripper Stebson’.  He was mean, he was horrible to everybody and he was violent.  (If you’re significantly under the age of 40 you probably won’t have a clue who I’m talking about).  Thankfully, I didn’t encounter anybody like him when I was young, but I know people who have had their own versions of ‘Gripper’ in their lives and I can imagine how bone-achingly horrible it is to have to endure.

Gripper.  Just look at him.  He was horrible.

At school from the late 1970s through to the 1990s I think we were more successful at classifying bad behaviour as per the correct definitions.  There was bullying, then there was nasty, but nonetheless normal childhood interaction which was usually called fighting, arguing and teasing.  The former had to be tackled promptly by the appropriate authorities, but when it comes to the kind of mean behaviour which is unpleasant and which nobody likes, then you had to learn how to stand up for yourself.  I worry today that children won’t be able to develop a thick skin they need to function in this world if every time they experience something they don’t like, an adult labels it bullying and steps in.  

How is it that on the one hand we can hear harrowing reports of teen suicides and depression, yet on the other hand the same word describes toddlers pushing and shoving each other, children having a fall out in the playground or even former adult friends no longer getting along?

A few months back I was at a soft play centre when a member of staff asked my friend to keep an eye on her three year old child as he was bullying other children.  How can somebody consider a playground shove from a pre-schooler an act of bullying?  Are three year olds even capable of bullying?  Are they yet aware that their actions have consequences?  Absolutely not, so the very notion that a three year old could be a bully is entirely absurd.  Although my friend's little boy needed to be told, 'no' and that he wasn't to hit or push, it is very damaging to label pre-schoolers who haven't sufficiently developed empathy as bullies.

Next we have a lovely friend of mine who was accused of being a bully by a grown man in a discussion group on a social media site.  This friend is one of the most polite, well-mannered, eloquent and reasonable ladies I know, yet she was called a bully for her non-threatening, well-worded disagreement over this man’s point of view.  Today, it would seem, the term bully can be used simply if you don’t like somebody’s opinion and you don’t agree with what they’ve said.  It’s a ‘catch-all’ accusation and the second somebody cries wolf that they’re being bullied, the overly-sensitive general public go into sympathy and protection mode.  They rarely investigate whether an act of bullying has actually taken place and even if they do it’s rarer still that they have the correct definition of the word in order to scrutinise the situation appropriately.

My six year old son has already experienced the odd scuffle at school.  He’s endured a bit of teasing (to my shame I once sent him to school in very cool, but nonetheless hot pink underpants!); he’s had his belongings taken and he’s been physically pulled about, slapped and scratched.  Each time I’ve spoken to his teachers calmly and reasonably and each time, she’s been able to rectify the problem without me ever having to use the word ‘bullying’.  This is because, as a parent, I have some understanding of what constitutes normal child behaviour (particularly amongst boys), whilst also knowing the correct definition of the word ‘bully’.

Even more worryingly, some people are deliberately misusing the word ‘bully’ as a means to discredit somebody they don’t like.   They know bullying is a hot issue and the word itself is provocative, therefore they can easily create the drama and the attention they crave by maliciously labelling people they have fallen out with (and who have previously stood up to them) as ‘bullies’.  It’s called ‘projection’ by psychologists (i.e. when somebody projects the guilt of their own bad deeds onto others) and this extraordinary behaviour has been witnessed recently by me and some of my friends.  A police friend of mine agrees that the wolf-cry of ‘I am being bullied’ makes it more difficult to distinguish actual acts of bullying and harassment which is a very real problem and a teacher friend of mine agrees that she is inundated with children reporting they are being bullied, when in actuality they’ve experienced little more than a snub in a playground game.

For the record, bullying is far more than a snide comment, it’s more than having the mickey taken out of you, it's more than some of your friends 'leaving you out' and it’s more than an innuendo-fuelled tweet.   Toddlers aren’t bullies if they push over a baby at soft play, children aren’t bullies if they don’t want to play with your child, strangers on the internet aren’t bullies if they don’t share your opinion and former friends aren’t bullying you if they’ve made an off-colour joke at your expense.  When we continue to use ‘bully’ out of context we are in danger of telling everyone around us that the entire world is being bullied and that everyone is a victim.

One researcher into this problem, Professor Elizabeth Englander, has said at CNN.com, “By calling everything bullying, we’re actually failing to recognize the seriousness of the problem.  It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of doing an awareness campaign … everyone wants to adopt it.”  Englander continues, “the label ‘bullying’ is really incendiary.  It ratchets everything up emotionally.  It makes it hard to really address, rationally, what the best course of action is.  The people hurt most by the overuse of ‘bullying’ are young people most desperate for a solution – those in the midst of very real traumatic instances of bullying, students whose pain might be overlooked in a crush of reported cases.  It’s the unrelenting cruelty and callous nature of (actual) bullying which is watered down when we include every social slight or quarrel under the bullying banner.”

So, during this anti-bullying week, let’s start taking bullying seriously by correctly using the word!

35 toys of Christmas past!

Kids toys aren't what they used to be!  Especially if you were a girl.  Now, I'm going to give my age away here by admitting that I'm a child of the late '70s / early '80s, but with all of the Xmas toy shopping afoot at the moment, I've gotten a bit nostalgic for the toys from my childhood.

After shopping for boys for the past seven years I've now become quite adept at it.  In fact, it's quite easy. Boys like toys with a bit of fire power.  The like to blow stuff up and shoot bits at each other. Even Lego and Playmobil, staple unisex brands which were the 'new thing' in the 70s, have a bit of fire power these days! Then there are Super Heroes, Star Wars and dress-up costumes.  When they're older it's games consoles with games which fire things and blow stuff up.  Remember this and you can't go wrong!

This is the first proper year where I'm venturing down the pink aisle of the toy shops as my youngest and only girl is 20 months old and she's wanting toys which aren't of the the Vtech/Leapfrog/Fisher Price baby educational variety.

So down the pink aisle I go and what do I see?  Shelf after shelf of sparkly pink tat.  I have no idea why everything must sparkle or be pink if its to be marketed at girls, but despite having two big brothers and an influx of those gender-neutral baby toys, my daughter makes a beeline for the glitter!

I was a very girlie-girl when I was young.  I loved dolls and babies and any toy which could be dressed and brushed and I can't remember much sparkle or much pink.

So what were my favourite toys over the years? I've done quite a bit of research and found dozens of gems - many of which I'd forgotten the name of - and I'm now sitting totally assured that Santa brought us kids of the 1970s much better presents than anything I could find for my daughter today.

1. SINDY'S DREAM HOME

Here it is, folks!  The cream of the crop of all toys which ever existed ... Sindy's dream home!  I had that blue bedroom and orange bathroom suite in my house and it was blinking spectacular!  As was the roof patio and greenhouse with paper plants to colour in.  Then we have the 'wall of sound' with crackling fire and purring cat!  For those not aware of early Sindy ... she was much cooler when she had a big head and didn't look like Barbie.  The 1990s ruined her.

2.  GIRL'S WORLD

The best thing about this ultimate in 'styling heads' was the little booklet which gave you lots of hair styling and make-up ideas.  I remember the sporty look instructed you to draw freckles on.  I'm sure this booklet taught me how to plait hair, which is very useful.  The curlers didn't work, but the make-up was quite good. In time, I discovered the wonders of scissors and chopped all of it's hair off.

3.  LADYBIRD'S 'WELL-LOVED TALES'

The drawings in these books are so vivid and I remember gazing at them for hours, examining all the detail in the clothes of the characters and the scenery.  I had all of these books and I'm very lucky to still have them sitting on my eldest's book shelf.  I loved them because they were the real un-Disneyfied versions of the fairy tales.  The wicked queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was made to dance to her death in red hot iron shoes and I'm pretty sure the Big Bad Wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood.  Then there was Cinderella who went to a whopping three balls and had a different outfit for each!  My favourite book was Snow-White and Rose-Red (top left), probably just because there was two girl characters and it was a less well known story and I like to back the underdog! :)

4.  BRITAIN'S ZOO

I loved this toy and played with it for hours.  I had some farm animals too, but the zoo was the best.  One of my earliest memories was getting three donkeys from the local shop circa. 1977 (before my sister was born and I lived in a council flat in Sunderland with my parents and nana).  The polar bear family was my favourite, but I also had a sneaky regard for the giant tortoise.  I didn't have that band in the picture above though - but I wish I had!

5.  FISHER PRICE SCHOOL

FP 'Little People' were much better in the 70s.  The school roof was magnetic would you believe!  I learned to read and spell with this school!  Plus ... and wait for this ... the front wall was a blackboard AND you got real chalk!  As for the characters, just look at the freckle faced school bully.  You wouldn't mess with him, would you? :)

6.  LUNDBY DOLLS' HOUSE

Rivalling the Sindy dream home in 'the amount of time you can sit and play with a toy' stakes is this Lundby dolls' house which was called something Swedish and Ikea-esque.  This was a fab toy and I was VERY lucky to have this.  The car was brill as it had seatbelts and the kitchen was very 'modern' as it had a dishwasher.  The wooden television was especially memorable as it had a photograph of a long-haired bloke on water-skis.  Oh and it lit up.  Even the fish tank which I inexplicably placed on the outdoor balcony lit up!

7.  BALLERINA SINDY

This was my first 'big girl's doll' and I got her when I was four.  As previously mentioned, 'big head' Sindy was a good, solid, great British doll and I wish you could still buy her.  Who'd buy Monster's High if you could get a Sindy?  Not me, that's for sure!

8.  JEM DOLLS

Jem, a range of popstar dolls, arrived in the early 80's and for a time, she rivalled Sindy in my affections. The doll on the right had flashing red earrings!  My favourite was Jem's bitchy rival, Stormer (above left), who was more 'rock chick' than pop starlet and ... well, just look at that hair!  Need I say more?

9.  MANDY ANNUAL

Every year for Christmas I got a Mandy annual and I read it diligently from cover to cover several times over.  I was always a Mandy rather than a Bunty girl and it's such a shame neither of these great girls' comics exist today.  Maybe adolescent girls became too sophisticated for stories about boarding school kids saving their school from a wicked development company ... I don't know, but it is a shame.  Most of the stories seemed to revolve around ponies for some reason, which brings us on to .....

10.  MY LITTLE PONY

These are still around but they're much weirder and even come in semi-human 'pony girl' form with lots of glitter, sparkles and pinkness.  The originals were much cuter.  This one was my favourite and she was called Bubbles.

11.  MISFITS

A unisex toy, these were a set of very strange and terrifying people which you had to make up.  There was a 'blacked up' fella in the mix so they're too retro-racist for today's market.  I did find a similar, updated version of these in Home Bargains a couple of  years ago but they were nowhere near as scary therefore nowhere near as good!  Just look at that baby's face on the left!

12.  AMANDA JANE

I'm lucky enough to still have two of these dolls from when I was little, which my little girl loves to dress. Amanda Jane came in three genres.  Baby Amanda Jane (above), classic Amanda Jane (child aged around 4) and Miss Amanda Jane (child aged around 10).  I had quite a few of these dolls and lots of outfits including my favourite - a Brownies costume.  They had very bad hair though and would look like Jimi Hendrix after barely a few months of brushing.

13.  FISHER PRICE HOUSE

Every child of the 70s first dolls house!  This is so much better than today's Little People or Happyland as it had lots of removable furniture.  I loved the baby (above right) who would sit in it's cot, highchair or pushchair and wasn't the least worried that he was the same height as the adults.  Neither was the dog!

14.  VIEWMASTER

Mostly this was a rubbish toy, UNLESS you managed to get the Disney Viewmaster reels!  I had Cinderella AND Lady and the Tramp and was probably the envy of the neighbourhood at a time when Disney films were only released - at the cinema - every generation.  That's right kids ... there were no DVDs and no VHS (whatever that was!) - you had to go to the cinema in the school holidays and watch clips at Christmas and Easter on 'Disney Time'.

15.  THE GARDEN GANG

I seem to remember that these fab Ladybird books were written by a child and were coloured in felt tip pens.  I had lots of these books and I think my favourite was Polly Pomegranate, who wanted to be a ballerina.  I also liked Grace Grape the shy but talented opera singer.

16.  CLACKERS

Some time in the early 80s, clackers emerged.  The first type was basically two hard plastic balls attached to either ends of a piece of cord which you had to manipulate to 'clack'.  After taking several childrens' eyes out, the above, re-designed clackers appeared.  I was only allowed these by my parents for obvious safety reasons.

17.  TINY TEARS

She cried AND wee-wee'd which was phenomenal technology for the 1970s.  I loved my tiny tears and it never occurred to me that although she had the body of a 6 month old baby, she also had a full head of permed hair which wouldn't have looked out of place on my nana.

18.  FASHION PLATES

Easily one of my favourite toys, these fashion plates would occupy me for hours.  The idea was you could match up head, body and legs (six of each to choose from), take a crayon rubbing of it and then colour it in. Simple fun, but the possibilities were endless.  Particularly when you discovered that the back of the plates had patterns which you could rub over too!  I wish I still had these as they were fabulous! :)

19.  LEGO

Long before the sickly pink Lego Friends range and long before the Lego Minifigure was invented, Lego people looked like this.  Basically, you made clothes out of the bricks and to make a child you shortened the arms.  Endless possibilities for creating families and girls played with the same type of Lego as boys in the 70s too!  Imagine that, horrible Lego Friends!!

20.  VICTORIA PLUM

If you're a girl you'll know that girls love stationery and every girl in the early 80s had a Victoria Plum pencil. I had colouring pencils, pencil cases and a particularly loved rubber pencil topper too!

21.  TOPSY AND TIM

Of course you can still buy these books and there's even a TV show, but they were much better in the early '80s.  My favourite book was the 'Learn to Swim' one and can remember my favourite picture of a swimming race at the end.  Tim cheated as he swam with one foot on the bottom of the pool.  He was always far more useless at doing things than Topsy.

22.  CAMBERWICK GREEN PUZZLE

I remember playing with this wooden jigsaw for many years and Camberwick Green (as well as Trumpton and Chigley) was one of my favourite TV shows.  Mrs Honeyman with her baby was my favourite character, but I also liked Dr Mop.  The picture above says age 2 to 5, but I can't imagine a 5 year old playing with this toy today!

23.  NATIONALITY DOLLS

I've always loved national costumes and I had a lot of these large dolls, which were all dressed in traditional European dresses.  I had all three of the above.  They must have been quite cheap simple for the fact that my parents managed to buy me so many of them!  In hindsight they weren't that brilliant as their clothes weren't very accurate, but I still played with them a lot.

24.  CASSETTE RECORDERS

Wahey!  Look at these beauts!!  The tape recorder on the top is similar to my first one and it was very rubbish by today's music playing machine's standards but that orange 'record' button meant you could tape theme tunes off the telly.  I had a couple of 'telly tunes' tapes, my favourite being either 'The Fall Guy' or 'The Littlest Hobo'.  The upgrade to the below DOUBLE cassette recorder meant a) you could tape your tapes and make 'mix tapes' and b) you could tape off the radio carefully pausing through any talking and getting cross if you missed the beginning of the song.  Suddenly there was no reason to spend money you didn't have (due to being 10) on albums! Awesome!!

25.  FUZZY FELT

I have good memories of playing with this exact set of fuzzy felts and used to make the mouse on the scooter over and over again.  No idea what the creature on the right is ... Zippy from Rainbow with a suntan? Hmmm ...

26.  POT BELLY PANDA

I used to love this soft toy which must have came out circa 1982.  You could also get pot belly bear (my sister had this one), pot belly raccoon and pot belly koala.  He was lovely to cuddle at night and I'm pleased to say we still have him in the family and he now sleeps in my oldest son's bed with him.

27.  CHARLIE'S ANGELS DOLLS

I was quite young when I got my Charlie's Angels doll (maybe 6 or 7) and this is the one I had - Kelly - who I thought was the prettiest in the show.  My sister had Sabrina who wore a red jumpsuit with a blue scarf.  I remember us playing with them in the back of our parents' Ford Cortina.

28.  THE GINGHAMS

Ah, paper dolls!  I would spend hours playing with these and this make - the Ginghams - was my favourite. Each of these four dolls came in a gingham box which transformed into a playset with furniture and the figures had lots of clothes which would take quite a while to carefully cut out.  I was lucky enough to have all four of these boxes which were from left to right, Carrie's bedroom (blue); Katie's ice cream parlour (pink); Sarah's garden (green) and Becky's playroom (yellow).

29.  ROLLER SKATES

I started my roller-skating life with similar skates to the ones on the left.  They fitted over your shoes and weren't very good but must have been dangerous as my little sister was only allowed to wear one skate in case she went too fast.  One skate meant she skated around in circles but she didn't go very fast at all so my mam's plan worked!  Once the 1980s arrived in full swing I got a pair of yellow and blue roller boots from Fenwicks for Christmas.  I must have been around ten at the time as I had them fitted and they weren't a surprise so it must have been long after the 'Santa believing phase'.  I wasn't a particularly good skater and spent a lot of time on my bottom, but I must have mastered that front toe 'stopper' as I seem to remember it was worn down to the metal!

30.  CARE BEARS

All little girls of the 80s had a Care Bear and I had Bedtime Bear, (the green one above), in both teddy form and plastic figure form.  It was cute and cuddly and I seem to remember liking it a lot as Care Bears became, alongside My Little Pony, a bit of a girl craze.

31.  E.T. MERCHANDISE

Everyone loved E.T. the tear-jerking iconic movie about a little alien (although, somewhat shamefully, Chrissy Grey has NEVER seen this film!).  Both me and my sister had this little E.T. figure.  Mine sat on a shelf to be prized as a collector's piece.  My sister's doubled up as Sindy's baby and lived with her in the dream home.  Very weird! :D

32.  T.V. TIE-IN BOARD GAMES

I remember playing with both of these games a lot and I think the Blankety Blank one was my favourite.  I even think I used to play them by myself, which is probably due to nobody wanting to play with me because I was a terrible loser.

33.  FLOWER FAIRIES

I had quite a few of these little flower fairy dolls which served well as a child of Sindy or Barbie (the wings were removable and you could hid their elfish ears with hair).  I had this exact doll, which I think was the 'Pink' fairy, and you could buy lots of lovely costumes for them.  The only thing which spoiled them was the rubbish hair (worse even than Amanda Jane's), which when washed and hair-dried melted into a plastic clump.

34.  PLASTICINE

Yes, I know you can still buy plasticine, but this is what it looked like in the 70s and I had lots of it and it used to get stuck into my bedroom carpet.  My finest accomplishment was making the entire von Trapp family out of plasticine with three costume changes for each character.  The Sound of Music was BIG in our house!

35.  BARBIE

So I've already covered the fact that Sindy was much better than Barbie, BUT for a time in the early-mid 80s Barbie was very cool.  This was because she became a shoulder-padded Dynasty-inspired boardroom career girl and I liked this very much.  I had all of the above dolls (Day to Night Barbie/Ken and Crystal Barbie).  I'm ashamed to say that 'Day to Night' working girl Barbie (above left) finally evicted Sindy from the dream home and moved in with Ken (but not with E.T. as their baby).

So I rest my case and I hope you agree that toys of the 70s and 80s were, without doubt, much better than what you can buy today.  Oh, and if you're sceptical about my assertion that there was less pink in the 70s - here is your proof.  A comparison of Woolworth's 1970s toy catalogue with today's offerings. How did this happen and is the devil's fairy, Mavis Cruett, responsible?