For the graduates of 1978

The London Times says that the Seventies are getting cool:

But there are two much more important factors. First, from a suitable distance we can now see the true political, cultural and artistic depth of the era. And, second, it is now clear that the “Noughties” have much in common with the 1970s. It is, I am sure, no accident that Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, the supreme 1970s movie, has many similarities to Paul Thomas Anderson’s new There Will Be Blood. Both involve dark forces, a sinister tycoon, a precious resource – water or oil – and a bleak, violent, hopeless conclusion. Daniel Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview is set to become this generation’s version of John Huston’s Noah Cross.

And it is certainly no accident that Life on Mars, the best British television series of recent years, portrayed a contemporary cop thrust back into the harshness and brutality of the 1970s – nor, indeed, that our hero, when given the choice between then and now, chose then.

Go figure.