![Sample our Urban Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110826/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Urban-Studies.jpg"})
Notes
1 It is a crumb of comfort that Labour spin doctors early in 1997 did not ruin the song of this name, made famous in the 1996 film Trainspotting, the lyrics of which begin: ‘when the taking and the giving starts to get too much’. Although cynicism in the 1990s was rife, the idea that how we were living was wrong was widespread, from high to popular culture, from the pages of Social Justice Commission Tomes to the cinema advertisements, including that for the film just mentioned, a film many more than two thirds could then afford to see:
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life… (http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/trainspotting.html).
2 But still ‘managing’ to. Only 3 per cent of children's parents could not manage that even in 1999. http://www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/pse/welcome.htm
3 Yes she has been promoted since. She became the PPS for the (Right Hon as they like to say) Peter Hain, now Secretary of State in the Department for Work and Pensions.