"All these people are currently living through the most technological era since yesterday." "Today everybody is obsessed with machines." "We spend more at screens than into the eyes of our loved ones." "Gadgetry is now considered part of nature itself." "Which is more technologically advanced?" "An iPhone or a cat?" "Definitely a cat." "A ridiculous answer." "How did we get this messed up?" "Maybe things started going wrong when we first surrendered our attention this flickering medaller." "This week how TV ruined your life simply by being a part of progress." "Don't it didn't; it did." "Progress." "Where would we be without Progress." "Where would we be without progress?" "Well, you wouldn't be sitting there watching this for one thing, no, you would be standing outside in a smock like a peasant." "Yes, we would all be outside, amusing ourselves by playing the duck bum aphone." "Not that we would have time." "We would be far too busy chopping wood or tilling the fields." "Have you ever tried it?" "It's no fun." "Mankind's hatred of these chores has led it to create all manner of devices, from the camel wheel to the wooden foot operated bow thing, are all world-altering technologies." "Once upon a time television was new technology itself and was inherentlily mistrusted." "It squatted in the corner of the living room demanding the entire family shut and stare at it." "As you expect, this dangerous new invention had a vested interest in making technology was a beautiful thing, and it quickly set out to show us wondrous visions of the world tomorrow." "Optimistic programmes like" "Tomorrow's World showed a glittering future full of jet-powered whoever loos, and sleek cars which would let middle-aged men impress with their accessibility and comfort." "Of course, this was - there were Of course, this was - there were plenty of robot slaves." "We would become layabouts become layabouts and even the ostensibly enjoyable stuff was farmed out to the become ot." "Looks line" "Some programmes celebrated man's Some programmes celebrated man's harnessing of technology." "Scarcely moment went by without audiences being startled by some entertainingly probing deep space expedition." "General Smith, order one of your military space crews to investigate Uranus?" "Ha ha, he said your an news." "crews to investigate Uranus?" "he said crews to investigate Uranus?" "he said your crews to investigate Uranus?" "he said your anus." "he said your anus." "These computer waves are coming from Uranus." "They are going to keep on saying it." "Al we hobbled towards our giant leap, TV was keen to tell us more." "Tomorrow's World showed us what the moon base of tomorrow would like and how it would work." "will be a daily shuttle service where 300 passengers at a time will reach the city after a five-day journey from Earth." "Liars." "Blue" "Peter had wide-eyed items detailing virtually every aspect of space travel." "Possibly the first man on the moon will be an American and it's nice to know that we have helped him on his way with our specially made British cooling suit." "It was clear mankind was going to have a great time of it, space was going to be all ours, we would own that ship like an empire." "The itself arrived, billions huddled around their televisions and thrillingly, while a global audience of billions watched with bated breath, man set foot on the moon." "What is that?" "First man on the moon, hey?" "For a while, space exploration was groovier than ever, celebrated in shows like UFO which showed we freaky far out humanoids conquering vandals hurtling towards the planet." "But away from the televised fiction we kept returning to the moon in reality." "What did we discover?" "Well, that space exploration was a letdown." "For one thing, there wasn't much to the moon." "We had spent billions sending astronauts there just to piss around. # I was on the moon day #" "Furthermore, when you looked back at Furthermore, when you looked back at" "Earth our planet now looked worryingly fragile." "Having mounted a lengthy PR campaign in its honour, TV now started to wonder whether progress was such a good thing after all." "A totally unforeseen on the lunar surface has caused very serious repercussions here on Earth." "Hence the likes of Space 1999, depressing vision in which the moon became an industrial waste dump manned by incompetents which sent the meaningless chalky space." "As the years slid by, things remained resolutely grim with shows like Blake's 7, a space opera, the tale of political exiles perpetually on the run." "Space itself was washed out, where the highlight of your day was finding a war memorial in a quarry." "Some sort of obelisk, I suppose." "The crew were constantly being shot at and shaken around like despised step kids, each time the" "Liberator hit a pothole." "The entire cast were gunned down in a final episode so devoid of hope it seemed to have been filmed on a camera made of dying widow's tears." "During their brief lives they had continually tortured by technology supposedly assisting them." "The chief tormentor loved himself almost as much as an iPhone and he treated the humans with huge condescension." "I want to tap central spacecraft register, can that?" "Tap?" "What is that?" "Obtain information from the records." "It's a bit like watching people struggle with Windows Vista." "Receive emergency programme." "Confirm when ready." "Confirm readiness." "Come on, come on!" "Sometimes it was like watching Jeremy Paxman quizzing Michael Howard on Newsnight forever." "That information is not immediately available." "Can you get?" "It has no bearing on the problem." "Can you get it." "Eventually." "How long is eventually?" "It will require time and resources far in excess of value of the information." "Well, it anyway." "I want the reason that alert." "Very well." "I will in due course." "Jesus, even Apple" "Computers aren't this snooty." "It was cold, heartless and" "Today it would be judging a talent contest." "# Nothing you can say # ZOG900 # Nothing you can say # ZOG900 performance analysis. performance analysis." "# Nothing you can Do not question ZOG900." "# Some day, I'll wish upon a star # Some day, I'll wish upon a star" "# And wake up where the clouds are far behind me #" "Sufficient input." "Analysing." "Processing." "You have failed." "Oh no." "Your performance is inadequate." "You may now vacate the performance zone." "OK, thank you." "You may now the performance zone." "# When you try your best but you # When you try your best but you" "Once upon a time computers were so Once upon a time computers were so" "# When you complex, merely switching one on required an army of dweebs acting as if they were operating a nuclear submarine." "Check temperatures, please, Malcolm." "Up to speed." "Disk oil and temperature OK." "Is end?" "OK for standby." "Switch on standby, Peter." "Standby coming on." "WHIRRING." "OK, HD coming on." "The computer is ready for use." "By the 1980s, computers had become so compact and basic it only required one schoolboy operate them." "This is the computer and we are going to go through a simple little the computer's capabilities." "Microchips were cheaper and plentiful, prompting a wave of exciting ads about machines could patrol your home." "Big Track will advance, turn and blasts." "Man was clearly getting more comfortable around his machine comfortable around his helpers, sometimes suspiciously close, as in the silly hi-tech fantasy Knight Rider in which one man irony empire David Hasselhoff shared close banter with computer." "Not now, Michael, I have a headache." "You know, you never acted this way before, pal." "I never this way." "Perhaps the most relation share prices was between ghastly concoction with Walter, a geeky backroom cop, who somehow created Automan who can easily out of the computer world and into ours." "Although he was obviously created for fun, this could be view of a closeted fantasist who creates a dashing alter ego." "It looks to me like Walter massively fancies Ought Dohmann." "He feels electricity when their hands meet." "Put your hands on top of mine." "he leaps at the chance to get more acquainted." "Come, enter my dimension." "You are kidding!" "I am not programmed to kid." "Move into my form." "Once he fully penetrates Automan he has a sort of breakdown and become as split personality." "Hey, I'm you?" "You can never be me:" "I'm you." "Then he goes cruising the streets at night, picking up men." "Naughty boy." "Don't hurt me." "I may want to break you in half." "Just let me bend him a little." "No, we have work to do." "By now real computers were invited into our homes." "Computers were supposed to be for important stuff like spreadsheets and numbers, but it soon became apparent they were being off-roaded into extra curricular activities which challenged broadcasters for space on the box itself." "Now you can play the world's most popular arcade game in your own home." "They were so advanced they offered an entertainment experience far beyond just gawping at things." "It's so involving you will feel as though you are actually in movie." "Really?" "Before long a whole range entertainment options was available and tradition TV clearly didn't approve." "There are monster games like this one where you swallow giant cherries and there's the space invader theme where you shoot moving fleets of hostile aliens." "Fairly boring." "Then there are more recent sports games." "Sports games to me are perhaps the most appalling use of computers." "Ever since, TV has routinely portrayed video games as another worldly threat which glorifies violence." "Children being spirited away to habitual violence." "Perhaps the most preposterous threat was a Channel drama exposing the horrendous truth concerning Scott who got obsessed with a bizarre murdering game which with a bizarre murdering game wasn't feasible then and isn't now." "Scott had to carefully select a willing victim." "She is Tracey." "And spy on her as she is undressing, all without leaving evidence." "Shit." "Footprint." "Computer: your score is too low to continue." "The impossibly detailed game is also magically addictive and before long Scott becomes totally obsessed with plotting his cyber killing." "Inevitably, because games are and wrong, he kills her with a hammer." "Not exactly sonic the Hedge hog, is it?" "Computer: you have killed victim and gained access to stage 3. stage 33 at the same time an even bigger threat was growing popularity." "The internet." "We now have a World The internet." "We now have a World" "Wide Web page on the internet so you can access the information if you can get onto the World Wide Web." "If you can, this is our" "Soon, even though some of us Soon, even though some of us couldn't even use a mouse we were coming to rely on computers too much for TV's liking." "Experts warn it may already be too late to prevent millions of computer systems breaking down at the turn of the century. some people who will not survive coming of the year 2000, simply because they fail to take action" "now." "With the millennium looming clearly mankind hadn't heeded warnings about the danger of machines and now this was about kill us all." "Planes would plop from the heavens and the continent be nuked." "TV brought out presenters to look on in horror live as computers destroyed our world. the event the only thing that seemed really affected was Peter Snow's autocue." "So far, it has cost us about ã250 billion to take on bug." "And that's the way it has been." "MP mmm." "MP bug." "And that's the way it has been." "Ahem. ã250 billion, it has cost us." "Soon it became apparent that computers weren't going to annihilate us after all and TV had to reassess its relationship with technology." "If it couldn't beat it would have to absorb it." "What TV needed was to become more like a computer, a machine which did what you wanted, a machine that was interactive." "Interactive TV is nothing new." "Witness the thrilling the Golden Shot essentially an early version of the game Doom in which member of the public controlled crossbow attached to the studio camera to shoot at prizes." "Up, up, stop." "Right." "Stop." "Up, stop." "Fire." "This was massively ahead of its time although, if contemporary society degrades by another 12% someone will pitch an extreme version where viewers fire sharpened toothbrushes into the eyes of paedophiles." "Anyway, best keep it light." "I was about to bring up Noel Edmonds, an under-rated technological innovator." "In fact, he seems to have done everything currently popular on the internet on TV years before its time." "He kicked off with Swap Shop which was pretty much eBay with more toys and fewer pirate DVDs." "It was effectively an early peer to peer file sharing network." "Can we have the top 10 records in?" "Here he is downloading music, albeit from studio ceiling." "He was there providing links." "What was your favourite song?" "Gordon Bennett." "Then there were some of the earliest mobile phone conversations on TV and an interactive take on" "Google's Streetview." "Can you see that?" "At any point along could shout stop or tell it to go to the left or right." "When House Party came along he introduced his own live version of Skype." "Let's meet this week's star of MTV." "Hello!" "Hello, Andy." "Hello, Noel." "How you?" "I'm all right, mate." "I can't no!" "But as soon as Noel was shunted off the Saturday night schedule TV lost its technological mojo for a while." "For instance, the popularity of mobile phone texts led to an entire TV Saturday evening dedicated to the SMS messaging system, Joy of Text Live which already looks entirely dated." "It was a whole evening of text fun, live text studio guest texting and live text speed texting." "Lucy is on her second word and Rebecca is on her third word." "Yeah, Saturday night, woo!" "Meanwhile, there was reality show watching humans walking around inside a little house and used your phone to proclaim which of them you found least objectionable." "This began an entire genre of popularity contests which continues to this day." "We were encouraged to decide which contestants stay flick of a thumb." "It's actually less interactive than the interactive than the Golden Shot because there are a million hands steering the ship." "People feel they can control world events by texting in, no matter how many times you vote, you can't take this off the news." "These days you have to turn to high class erotic entertainment in which gentlemen discuss the details of the day with women that has been around for ages." "There is then the Pennant's channel." "You know." "Ryan Daniels seen leaving court today is the first teenager in Britain to be sentenced to 24 hours' televised humiliation." "He spent months terrorising residents on this estate." "On one incident he leapt onto 78-year-old Ivy's back and forced him to ride him 17 miles to a burger outlet." "I was driving along and this young man rode me like a horse all the way this burger drive-through." "He ordered all kinds of things and rode me round the back and didn't even give me any onion rings." "No one should have to go through that kind of thing, even if born with wheels, like that nice" "Herbie in that film about a boy who looked like a car and was a car." "Today a judge sentenced Daniels to appear on the Home Office's visible punishment TV channel for 24 He will have to obey instructions while on air tweeted and texted by viewers, no matter how humiliating." "It is currently broadcast on cable with plans to extend to Freeview later this year." "Ivy is already among those watching." "Politicians hope this is a step forward." "It's important not just that justice is done but seen to be done and if it can be seen to be done entertainingly with its own theme music, then so much the better." "It's proving popular with viewers." "In his first eight hours on air Daniels had to carry out several suggestions before being hospitalised for paint inhalation." "Today, TV also mimics the unreal Today, TV also mimics the unreal visuals of video games." "The line is blurred between fact and fantasy." "Insanely visual, we are surrounded by everyday miracles and life as a whole is starting to feel like technological dream." "We take everything for granted now." "When first encountered wi-fi it was like magic." "Now you will moan like an oppressed dissident if you can't get a 20 Meg download speed a 20 Meg download speed on your novelty BLEEP teaspoon. that?" "Little wonder we now blithely assume everything is possible." "Every day a new stunning breakthrough." "Yes, hollow graphic television?" "Yes, don't know what that is, but it figures." "The audience just swallows it." "CSI is set in the present day but demonstrates space in the year 3,000 yet no one thinks it's sci-fi." "OK, we should work backwards and take the most recent phone first." "It's no surprise you can show real people something as impossible as the time phone, a handset which lets you make calls through time, and they will simply believe you." "It allows you to call yourself in the past so you can remind yourself about keys or just have a conversation with yourself." "What do you think about that?" "I like that, that's pretty good, so can call myself back in time and have a conversation with myself?" "See, I like that." "Technology is amazing and everywhere." "It's impossible not to gawp at it." "It's like invasion of the gleaming rectangles." "We are hopelessly drawn to the light, never mine apes, we must be descended from moths." "All these screens have knackered our attention Spain." "Who can spare the mind space to concentrate on a book anymore?" "Hardly bloody anyone." "Just" "Today, no one's got time anymore to Today, no one's got time anymore to read an entire novel and as a result sales have collapsed." "For instance, in the whole of Italy in 2009 two books were sold, and one of those comprised of nothing more than photographs of pineapples with moustaches." "The way people read has changed." "That's why we have come up with bookdrum." "Bookdrum is a system which takes great works of popular fiction and then re-interprets them in a form which today's hurried audience can understand." "So here we have To Kill A Mockingbird." "There are key things, Atticus Finch there, some of these words represent themes." "Racism there." "And this is the bookdrum player." "Now, what we do is we slot the bookdrum tape, as it were, into the bookdrum player, so." "Then you put the bookdrum player on your head." "Switch it on." "And as you can see, Switch it on." "And as you can see, it's revolving in front of her eyes." "Sarah is now absorbing the essence of To Kill A Mockingbird in a fraction of the time that it would have taken to read." "How is it going in there, Sarah?" "Pretty good." "Maybe the problem isn't progress, Maybe the problem isn't progress, maybe the problem is us." "We seem to have a knack for reducing the most incredible inventions to their basest level almost overnight." "Take radio." "We created radio, and nation spoke unto nation." "German radio just announced that Hitler is dead. a bit, and then breakfast shows." "Then it went up my bum." "Right your bum?" "Yes, right up my bum." "My bum's where it went, right, and it went right up there." "Wow." "Anyway, here is Rhiannon with Umbrella." "Bumbrella more like." "We managed to drag it from I Claudius to the drag it from I Claudius to the" "Jeremy Kyle show." "With a you could browse through the contents of the most incredible art galleries in the world all in the palm of your hand or you could download a novelty act that makes it emit the sound of a farting duck." "In summary, it was claimed progress would let us relax in front of screens but now the future has arrived and those screens relax in front of us while we jest about like jesters for their approval." "They have left us surrounded by magic,"