Made in the 80s: the decade that shaped our world
Evaluation: ****
Spectrum Farming: We Are England
Evaluation: *****
Only once in my life have I glimpsed the future. And I was not impressed. The future looked like a death trap.
It circled around the Moreton-in-Marsh market, where I was the local reporter in 1985, and at any moment it seemed to be falling apart.
One of the first electric road vehicles, the Sinclair C5, was being demonstrated. This wonky three-wheeler was so low it needed a flag on a long pole in the back, just so it could be seen by other vehicles.
Unlike its inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair, I had no idea that within 40 years petrol cars would be close to obsolescence and that all car manufacturers would pin their hopes on battery power.
Sir Clive Sinclair, (left) shaking hands with Sir Alan Sugar, head of Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc, after it was announced that Amstrad had purchased all rights to sell Sinclair computers worldwide in part of a £5 million deal in 1986
Made In The 80s: The Decade That Shaped Our World (C4) captured that moment in the Thatcher decade when the future was in the window and most of us didn’t recognize it.
Alan Sugar saw the opportunity and partnered with Sinclair to produce a low cost home computer.
Their former public relations manager, Nick Hewer, laughed at the images of Sinclair and Sugar, one bald with a red beard, the other with a mass of dark curls and a Florida tan.
“The boffin and the wheelbarrow boy,” Nick called them. This gripping documentary, the last of three, found a new way to look at the 1980s, through the prism of technology, and set it to a heart-pounding electronic pop beat – everything from ABC’s foppish New Romantics to boxing Adamski rhythms.
Video game designer Shahid Kamal Ahmad spoke of the thrill of owning his first PC and learning how to write computer code – a skill that gave him the confidence to stand up to bullies who persecute his family on their municipal property.
I had forgotten the existence of the Acorn PC and its brother, the ephemeral BBC computer. Acorn co-founder Hermann Hauser explained how an accidental discovery with a printed circuit board led to the development of the ARM chip, now used in virtually every smartphone.
Nick Hewer laughed at images of Sinclair and Sugar, one bald with a red beard, the other with a mass of dark curls and a Florida tan, on Made In The 80s: The Decade That Shaped Our World
The Sinclair C5: This wonky three-wheeler was so low it needed a flag on a long pole at the back, just so it could be seen by other vehicles, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
The chipmaker is now valued at £35bn – there’s an unexpected UK success story.
On a smaller scale, but even nicer, here is the success story of the Pennyhooks farm in Wiltshire.
With just 30 beef cattle, plus an assortment of goats, donkeys and chickens, this charming family business does something extraordinary. Since 1994, farmer Lydia Otter has welcomed young people with autism to come and work with the animals.
Some were still in elementary school when she first met them, and now they are in their thirties. “It’s just a wonderful privilege to watch them grow,” she said. As the father of a young man with profound autism, I know how much dedication and effort must go into making this possible. Lydia needs to raise over £100,000 a year to keep her charity afloat, and money is just one aspect of all her work.
This delightful half hour, part of the We Are England series (BBC One), was a welcome antidote to relentless bad news and a reminder that this country is still rich with wonderful people who do selfless things for others.
The benefits that Pennyhooks brings to its regulars cannot be overstated. Matt, a 24-year-old man with Asperger’s Syndrome, highlighted how life on the farm helped alleviate his boredom and loneliness, and it was obvious how much he wanted to do his best there. .
“If I didn’t have this farm, I probably would have gone crazy years ago,” he joked. “Animals are much easier to understand than humans.” Autistic or not, there is always some truth in that.