Fruitbowl - Fresh Ideas from Hawke's Bay

Thanks for everyone who has placed comments on my earlier post, What I did in the holidays.

The comments so far indicate the emergence of some trends which may or may not set the tone for this new decade, which I don’t actually know what to call. Maybe it could be called one of these names…

• the teens
• the twenty-somethings
• the twenty-tens
• the twenty-teens
• the tweenties
• the decade which begins in 2010 and ends in 2019 (this would suit a student who is desperately trying to reach a set word limit for an essay).

But I digress.

As Fruitbowl is very much a forward-thinking and proactive organisation, we should try to draw some conclusions from the comments about our attitudes towards the future.

After all, the best way to predict the future is not to create it, as Abraham Lincoln would have you had you believe, but to read the random musings of Fruitbowl contributors.

It seems that

• no-one likes having visitors any more. In fact, other people are simply something to pass the time with when you can’t get to your computer.
• the Millenium Trilogy is the greatest work of literature since the invention of the Commando comic and will dominate bestseller lists for most of the decade.
• Tim Durrant claims he can now bake bread on a barbeque. So Jamie Oliver’s career is all but finished.

But in order to look forward, we must look back.

The 70s were the decade of shagpile carpet, waterbeds, and oil shocks.

The 80s gave us Roger Douglas, breakdancing, and the Krypton Factor.

In the 90s we had the rise of the Internet, and OMC’s ‘How Bizarre’.

In the 00s, we laughed at Dubya, and played with our iPods and cellphones.

In this decade (see, I can’t even give it a name), what major events will shape our lives? How will we cope with the threat of climate change (man-made or not)? Will Napier and Hastings ever get along?

Please keep your stories of what you did in the holidays rolling in so we can form a clearer image of the Zeitgeist.

(If anyone doesn’t know what Zeitgeist means, please see me after the class)