1980s REVISITED:CURIOSITIES: SO, THE CONSENSUS is pretty clear - the 1980s were a godforsaken decade of corrupt politicians, economic misery, enforced emigration, dodgy dining and urban dereliction.
However, it is possible to have a hint of warm nostalgia for those loud years, but only if you were a kid. For us, they were halcyon years, a carefree procession of cool toys, addictive video games and amazing gadgets.
There's no prizes for guessing what the gadget of the decade was - the Sony Walkman, which strode the 1980s like a colossus, albeit a pocket-sized, AA battery-powered colossus. As revolutionary then as the iPod is now, it finally put music on the move. The designs were numerous and, to modern eyes, inexplicably ugly, and they were saddled with unwieldy model names such as WM-BF67 and WM-D6C, but while they sure weren't stylish, they were utterly ubiquitous.
It was also the decade when video games moved beyond Pong and Pacman and began to rival the movie industry in the fantasy-creation stakes. While grown men can still get wistful for machines such as the Commodore 64 and the Atari, it was the simple pleasures offered by the likes of Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros that offer the most vivid memories. I'd take a few hours manipulating a ball of pixels representing an Italian plumber over the media hullabaloo and graphic realism of the modern releases any day. Grand Theft Auto? I sneer in your anti-social face.
But top of the toy tree was the iconic Rubik's Cube, the quintessentially 1980s puzzle that tested one's mental and digital dexterity. The ingenious engineering, which meant the solid cube could flow like multi-coloured liquid in the right hands, was itself a source of wonder, and the click-clack of the rotating sides would eventually induce a state of zen-like calm, even if the colours stubbornly refused to come into alignment.
Certainly, struggling against the colours was frustrating, but like the decade it was so closely associated with, that was almost the point - seeking pattern and purpose in a mishmash of garish colours was, it could be argued, the abstract existential challenge posed by the decade itself.
Of course, the larger, metaphorical importance of solving the Rubik's Cube was lost on me, and my pitiful attention span meant I never actually achieved those solid-coloured sides. A regret? I've had a few, but I can't honestly say failing Erno Rubik's fiendish challenge is one of them.
But the best thing of all about being a kid in the 1980s? Easy - you got to be a teenager in the 1990s, meaning your Walkman could try and chew up your home-taped copy of Nirvana's Nevermind.