Living Life '80s Style... Part 2

Returning to the theme of living life in the style of The Glorious 1980s, how about buying some lovely knitwear or sweatshirts from the decade? I mean, just look at the two examples above. What more encouragement do you need?

 Perhaps a look at this might just tip you over the edge? Mmmm, lovely, is it not?

 And I bet these 1980s beauties leave you speechless.

To help create your ... er... beautiful '80s ambiance, scatter some genuine "of-the-decade" magazines about. Here, Nik Kershaw and Paul Young serve as an authentic reminder of how wonderful hairstyles were in the mid-1980s. All together now: "Near a tree by a river there's a hole in the ground..."

Lovely Pye "Red Box" TV here - dating from 1984. It won't do HD, but you can hook it up to your DVD player and watch '80s classic telly anyway.

"You make it Neet Weet, mate!" The Weetabix skinheads debuted in March 1982 and were created by Trevor Beattie, now of fcuck fame. They were called Bixie, Brains, Crunch, Dunk and Brian (he who said "OK!") and trundled on through the rest of the 1980s, last appearing in November 1989. During that time they dropped the skinhead chic (shame!) and went for more of a hip hop look, amongst other things.

Anyway, here's a lovely Weetabix kiddies' lunchbox from the mid-1980s. Great for carrying your '80s-style lunch to work in. What will it be? Packet of hobnobs? Makings of an exotic baked potato to pop in the works microwave? Spot of nouvelle cuisine? Pot Noodle? A Birds Eye Menu Master (Birds Eye's the bird of freedom, spread your wings and fly away...").

If you must have crisps, don't go for "common as muck" cheese and onion or smoky bacon. Make sure they're sour cream and chive or ham and mustard or something. Fancy crisps are a crucial style detail if you really want to create the mid-to-late 1980s time warp effect.

Something for the wall here - download a copy of Tim Berners-Lee's original diagram of the World Wide Web from 1989, its invention year, frame it, and display it prominently. Then, when some snobby, 80s-demeaning "friend" pops in and says: "Really! I don't understand your fixation with the 1980s! Nothing at all happened!" you can gesticulate grandly at your picture and  reply: "Pah! I beg to differ, mateyboots!"

And then waggle your Gordon The Gopher puppet at said "friend" until they go home. By bringing Gordon into play, you'll have convinced your "friend" that you're a very sad case indeed, and they probably won't bother you again.

Gilbert the snotty alien was an absolute wow in 1987 on kids' TV show Get Fresh, and graduated to his own series, Gilbert's Fridge, in 1988. This pic would look splendid over the fireplace in your '80s homage home, don't you think?

This is mine - a very '80s representation of a penny farthing bicycle which I bought from quite a posh gift shop when, in August 1986, I moved from a grotty bedsit into a house which I was allowed to rent at a knock-down price. It looked great on the black ash shelving unit. Happy days! Until April 1987 when my absentee landlord decided to sell his house and I moved into another grotty bedsit.

We're not finished living life '80s style... we'll return very soon with lorry loads of pendant lights, buckets of black ash, urban hordes of up-lighters, billions of red beds, dozens of director's chairs, mountains of Miami Vice chic and a monsoon  of hair gel and mousse...

Remember that, when it comes to the 1980s, more is more...