Tommy Martin’s predictions: Breakfast TV and putting ‘em under pressure in Finglas

Let’s face it, decades ain’t what they used to be. There was a time was when you knew where you stood with a decade. The sixties? Flower power and beards. The seventies? Sideburns and disco. The eighties? Everything was massive: shoulder pads, mobile phones, hair. You used to be able to tell a decade simply by looking at the trousers involved.

But the decade just gone didn’t even have a name. At best it was a bad 1930s tribute act. The only unifying theme was division. Culture was too fragmented, its method of delivery being more significant than the content, the medium becoming the message. Even the predominant trouser, the skinny jean, was a niche interest, given how it excluded those of us with chunkier thighs.