UNSUNG ICONS: THE FILOFAX

COMEDIAN DAVID SMIEDT TAKES AN IRREVERENT, BUT APPRECIATIVE, LOOK AT THE CLASSIC THINGS THAT DEFINE YOU-BEAUT AUSSIE LIFE

- DAVID SMIEDT

The second half of the 20th century brought some seismic cultural shifts. In the 1950s, it was rock and roll and the rise of the teenager. In the 1960s, it was Brit Pop and the civil rights movement. In the 1970s, we were still talking peace, love and macrame and towards the end, flares and disco.

In the 1980s, however, such thoughts of altruism evaporated like white powder up a drummer’s nose. It was about naked ambition, conspicuous consumption, the fetishisation of busyness and the glorification of a movie character whose mantra was “greed, for want of a better word, is good.”

And since this was just before the age where we fell in love and thrall to electronic everything, nothing encapsulated the era like the Filofax.

For younger readers, imagine a ring binder folder then shrink it. Add a calendar, sections for task, notes and if you were especially fancy a world time conversion chart so that you could “call the broker in Honkers”.

Most Australian households had several. Mums used them, dads used them, precocious teens who wanted to appear sophisticated used them.