Thursday 20th July

Leonard Cohen released a brilliant album in the early nineties called The Future.  It contained a few brilliant songs including one called ‘The Future’.  He sings “I have seen the future, Brother, it is Murder.”  But actually it was more about what was happening in America today, or back then.  And of course in many ways, the future, or what we recently thought of as the future, is already here.  I used to watch StarTrek – they had phasers and little hand-held communication devices.  Who, back then would have thought that we would have mobile phones which are actually hand-held computers, connected to e-mails and the internet, with apps seemingly capable of doing almost anything.  Who would have thought even a few years ago when you took photo’s in to be developed that this technology would be so quickly superseded, not only by digital cameras, but by mobile phones as well.  Who would have imagined the rise in Social media, where even the President of the United States can communicate (even if it almost illiterate rubbish) with his ‘followers’.  We had no idea that we would be spending hours every week on Facebook or Instagram.  Nobody imagined that Television would be not only broadcast on multiple channels (remember Pink Floyd in early Eighties talking about America with 15 channels of sh.. on the TV – if only it were just 15 to choose from) but with i-player, being able to watch almost anything at any time – and not only on the telly, but the computer, the laptop, the tablet and even your phone.  Who would have dared imagine youtube, almost every song and even albums available for free to ‘watch’ or listen to at any time.

Most car manufacturers are staffed not by workers but by robots.  Amazon has a handful of staff in it’s warehouse, machines picking and packing the products and dispatching them.  In fact everywhere you look the future, as we imagined it only a few years ago, is already here.  The trouble is that almost anything you can imagine is either already here or soon will be.  It is almost impossible actually to imagine the future at all because in most cases it is already here.