Thoroughly Modern Baghead

The Undies Story

When I was young so many years ago my beloved grandmother used to work in a local department store selling underpants. In those days the standard underwear for men and boys were colloquially called ‘blue ringers’, which were white ‘Y‘ fronted undies. The ‘blue ringers’ referred to the two stripes that encircled the elastic belt at the top. For me, having family connections in the underpants department meant that when ‘jocks’ came to my hometown, I was one of the first to receive the aforementioned apparel; a leopard skin print ala’ Johnny Weissmuller. I didn’t think much of the sartorial improvement foisted upon me until sports day when I was ridiculed by my male colleagues and later the whole school. Within a month of this embarrassing episode, attitudes had changed so much that if you were caught wearing the old style ‘blue ringers’ then you risked being a pariah of the school fraternity.

Your Father’s Wristwatch

Years later in my working life, I remember scoffing at the young men who entered the construction sites and who didn’t own a wrist watch but would offer the time via their cell phones. In this instance, I was the Philistine clinging to the old ways for it wasn’t long before I too was framing my day with the cell phone timekeeping method. Later I binned my watch collection because no-one wanted them and they were just taking up room, then a month later my sister gave me a watch for my birthday. Incidentally I am wearing that watch right now as I type.

Google Glass

In more recent times I’ve read about the ‘iPhone watch’ and ‘Google Glass’ and think to myself that I would never need such things because I’m too set in my ways. This is why advertising is directed to the 10 to 30 y.o. demographic. Personally I have an iPad and a smart phone but I still prefer my trusty old PC, because it has a proper keyboard, a nice big screen and I like using an old style mouse. For me the future is changing rapidly but I’m not a risk taker, I prefer other people to wear the fancy jocks and after its been filtered through society and given the thumbs up, then I’ll explore purchasing it.

iTunes

I do the same thing with music, although I like some contemporary music there is so much available that it is a waste of my time to troll through it to find music appealing to me. It is easier to go back in the decades and find music that has been filtered through the masses and declared quality by the charts or by the very fact that it is still available. I have a better strike rate at finding music that I like that way.

The Future Is A Funny Thing.

My beautiful Great Grandmother, ‘Alma’ died when I was 25 years old. She in turn was born in 1894 and in her time saw the advent of the motor car, flight, and man landing on the moon amongst many other technologies that we all take for granted today and everyday.

In my own time as it currently stands I’ve seen the advent of “jockettes”, microwaves, digital camera’s, ATM’s, GPS, Drones, Solar panels, PC’s, battery operated vacuum cleaners, electric toothbrushes and a myriad of other things too vast to mention. The list is seriously phenomenal. It’s like the rate of innovations and inventions are accelerating in a massive ever steepening curve upwards. When it seems like everything that you could possibly need has already been invented the boffins come up with something else you never knew you had to have.

Its hard to predict the future but as a spectator I can only say that I’m enjoying a front row seat and who knows, maybe someday soon I will be walking around with my new glasses, talking to myself but that would be nothing new.