It does not seem that Taking Woodstock, Ang Lee's new movie, is going to do much for me. The early reviews are tepid and it is hard to improve on Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock, the fondly remembered documentary for those of us a little too young to have been at that 1969 celebration of peace, music and love.
A more potent nostalgia kick has come from Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority (and, like me, in his teens in 1969), who, in this month's Prospect magazine, describes much of the industry he regulates as “socially useless”.
The division of work into “socially useful” and “socially useless” was a particular preoccupation of the post-Woodstock generation. Teaching, trade unions and public interest law were good. The oil industry and investment banking were not.