Good grief! I've been living in a science fiction world most of my adult life! I mean look around - talking sat-navs that tell us directions, phones that double as cameras and computers. I can connect to the internet on my phone - alright, I can't really use it properly but that's more to do with my own incompetence. Our last car had more computer hardware in its dashboard than NASA had to get men up on the moon. Mind you, often our car couldn't get us to Ipswich let alone the moon. The more technical gizmos, the more to go wrong. It didn't fly, either.
I am still waiting for my jetpack, though. When I was a boy, I was promised holidays on the moon, a jetpack and I wouldn't have to work. I realise that for two and a half million people that last bit came true. But we're nowhere near leaving the planet en masse or singeing our bums with the flames from our jetpacks. Reading Dan Dare in "The Eagle" and watching "The Jetsons" and "Star Trek" certainly prepared me for living in a science fiction world.
Things never turn out how you expect them, though, do they?
Sailing boats and rocket ships,
Silhouettes across the moon.
Our dreams are like broken strings,
Songs without a tune.
1 comment:
The most difficult thing about trying to imagine the future is getting the styling right: I love those pictures of Edwardian gents in handlebar moustaches and bathing suits on flying bicycles.
People talk about styles coming back, but they never do, really -- my party trick is dating a book to within a year by looking at its cover (OK, I go to dull parties).
Works backwards, too -- there's nothing as dated as an old film in "authentic period costume" -- have you watched "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" ot "The Sting" lately? It's the haircuts...
Mike
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