Great and enjoyable article - thanks.

Having grown up in the UK in the 60s, the hippie and flower power stuff bypassed me, thank goodness. That was the preserve of the over-indulged offspring of the rich. Amazing how many of those self-titled idealists went on to become stockbrokers, property developers etc in the 80s and beyond.

I have absolutely no nostalgia for that period. The music was awful, the dentist hurt like hell, the public services seemed to be on strike or "go slow" more or less permanently, winter clothing didn't really keep you warm, basic diseases killed you and those of us who were students or apprentices did actually do it tough financially.

Using nostalgia to flog cars would be hopeless. Those old cars broke down regularly, were hopeless on fuel and were clapped out by 100,000 miles. And they cost a year's wages.

You're right that nostalgia is big business. But I cannot understand why. You have to be well away with the fairies to actually believe that things were better then.

huonian,

Hallelujah, someone with their feet on the ground.

'I wonder if the drug-fuelled idealists at Woodstock saw that one coming?'

Nope.

I always wonder what Che Guevara would think about his T-Shirt sales myself.

Lets face it hippies were young people. Good on em for taking all those drugs and having a fab time. But now they get all upset that all the kids are on drugs. Bad! Bad!

Some of the OLO lefties still 'believe' too! But most grew up and realised that a lot of their idealistic solutions to the world's ills were just that. Aye Col? Although Col was probably like Alex P Keaton.

I've noticed a lot recently that the average OLO reader has a bloody bright tint on those rose coloured glasses. Except for the feminists. They seem to remember every marriage involved a poor down trodden wife who got bashed every night and wasn't respected let alone loved by their partner. Blood coloured glasses for them maybe!

All said and done, people hate change. For example, if I started being really nice and saying all the right OLO things like 'education is the key' and 'housewives are slaves' and 'everyone was nicer in the good old days', people wouldn't like it. But when people look back on me, they'll think that's exactly what I was like, as everyone was like them in the good ol' days.

BTW examinator is this you? c'mon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cwGDwjQoKY&feature=related

Dear Tom

I agree that nostalgia sells, but the hippies and attendees at Woodstock weren't just fuelled by drugs. There was also a lot of idealism mixed in there, and it's a shame that mainstream youth culture has lost that. It's still there, and more idealistic than ever but one has to know where to look for it.

Perhaps this refusal to acknowledge that idealism often mixes with pragmatism is why people are furious at Peter Garrett. It's OK for so many fans to sell out and for U2's new tour to be sponsored by Blackberry, but Peter Garrett is supposed to join the Greens and scream from the sidelines, even when he has both the brains and idealism to be in with the cabinet heavies, in the bear pit of the front bench of Parliament.

Short memory indeed!