Living in the future

The first day of a sparkling new year. The future of yesterday. But is it what we expected?

Prediction 1957: In AD 2000, our comfort environment will be so well controlled that we will be able to keep the atmosphere at the ideal level for the happiest, most energetic, productive life. Houses will be kept so clean by electronic dust and dirt traps that housecleaning will never be necessary. Dining-room tables will quietly swallow dish after a meal and transfer them to a dishwasher which will clean the dishes, dispose of the garbage, stack and store eating utensils until the next meal-time.

OK, so it might just be our house (aka “the project”), but... when I came downstairs this morning the debris from last night’s excesses were still pretty  much in evidence. There had been a considerable amount of cleaning before the event and it appears a lot will be needed after it as well...

Prediction 1928: Fifty years hence, according to Roger W. Babson, internationally known statistician, the milk bottle will probably be a museum relic, along with the ice wagon, the coal shovel and the ash can, and our milk and butter will be derived from kerosene instead of cows, while most of our other food will be served in concentrated or pill form.

Right... some of this clearly did happen, but as I poured a splash of milk from a bottle into the first coffee of the day the only “museum relic” I could find in the kitchen was myself. And the only kind of pill I required was an aspirin.

Prediction 1950: In AD 2000, cooking as an art is only a memory in the mind of old people. A few die-hards still broil a chicken or roast a leg of lamb, but the experts have developed ways of deep-freezing partially baked cuts of meat. Even soup and milk are delivered in the form of frozen bricks.

I guess I am getting on a bit, but... the chicken that’s roasting in the oven is beginning to smell rather good, and I don’t like the sound of those frozen bricks at all.

It seems to me that we have not quite reached the future, and by the sound of these predictions from past editions of “Popular Mechanics” (and many others collected in the excellent book “The wonderful future that never was”) we’re not likely to get there any time soon.

Might as well enjoy the present. Have a great 2014!