Smartphones and chimney sweeps

How much have we really moved on?

As I stare at my iCalendar, something strange looks back at me from the 14:00 slot.

‘Chimney sweep’.

I live in a Georgian building with an open fire, so every couple of years I have to invite Dick Van Dyke across to give it a once-over.

But nestled among the Zoom meetings and annoying Daylight Saving Time reminders, Dick (real name Charlie) stands out like a sore thumb.

It feels as if we currently live in a very strange time when we have more technology than you can shake a stick at, while also still being tied to some very old traditions.

Some of these are inevitable, like chimney sweeps, locksmiths and lollipop ladies. Some, admittedly, are not.

For example, I’ve recently started to get my fish from the fishmonger, which makes me feel as if I’ve just jumped off a penny-farthing with a wicker basket. I think this is mainly down to the word ‘monger’ which is just so formal: why does he ‘monger’ his product? You don’t have bread mongers or drug mongers.

Anyway. I get a thrill out of this little weekly detour because it seems to clash so obnoxiously with my otherwise hi-tech lifestyle. (It also makes me feel heroic, doing my bit to save the high street and all that.)

Whether it’s necessary for these artisan businesses to still be about, or just something for middle class people to idly enjoy, they remind us that this surreal clash of old and new isn’t quite the dystopian future predicted by Blade Runner with us zipping about in flying cars by the 2020s.

I’m trying not to feel as if it’s a failure

Have you seen that annoying Back to the Future meme that keeps telling you that if it took place today Marty would travel back to 1994? Yes, there’s the same 30-year distance between now and 94 as there was between 1985 and 1955. I hate it. Not just because it makes me feel old; it makes me feel as if, comparatively speaking, nothing much has happened.

But of course it has. It’s just that it’s all rather invisible. Despite the incredible advances in tech, often day-to-day life looks pretty similar to 1994, especially when you compare the 50s vs the 80s.

Take fashion for example

My clothes aren’t that dissimilar to those I wore 30 years ago, and it’s not because I’m totally boring (rude!) or so painfully hip that I’m following the current 90s fashion revival. But look at the difference between the 50s and 80s: we went from those silly dresses with the big skirts and nipped in waists to shoulder pads, leather jackets and baggy sweaters in 30 years.

Then there are the gadgets. One minute we were using a mangle, and the next we have tumble dryers, dishwashers, microwaves and egg slicers. What do we have now? Just a different type of tumble dryer, one that might work via a smartphone on a good day if the wind is right. But on the whole, most people still use these appliances in the same way as they did 30 years ago. (Ok, maybe not egg slicers).

Which is why my aunt still answers her landline as if it’s 1985

My aunt still has a house phone – she also has a mobile, an iPad and uses emojis – but the physical phone is still more or less as it was, which means she still answers it reciting the number and introducing herself.

HISTORY LESSON FOR THE KIDS: It was quite normal to answer calls with “Farnworth 75858” because it let the caller know that they’d reached the right house. Dialling mistakes were common – probably because rotary phones took so long that by the time we’d finished we couldn’t remember what our stubby fingers had done.

Incidentally, there was no caller ID back then and therefore no way for the person answering the phone to know who was ringing (can you imagine 🧟). So I wonder if the formal greeting was also a sort of defence mechanism – by announcing yourself in the style of Hyacinth Bouquet’s “The Bouquet residence, the lady of the house speaking,” you could control the conversation from the start.

So will life continue in this way I wonder?

Will we still wear boring jumpers while walking round with chips in our heads and eyeball implants? I suppose I’m a bit disappointed.

I blame that 80s TV ad for Prestige saucepans, which offered a 10-year guarantee. To demonstrate their commitment to such durability, actor Peter Davidson fast forwards from his chintzy 80s farmhouse to hi-tech kitchen to ten years in the future where he’s using the same pan, but in a kitchen that looks as if it’s on a spaceship.

His wife facetimes via his watch telling him to put the dinner on saying “I’ll be home in 20 minutes”. The tech prediction was about right, so where’s my spaceship?

I guess as long as we’re still made of flesh and bone, there’s not an awful lot you can do with us, we’ll always be boringly analogue, clomping around in our brick houses.

What does that mean for the next 30 years? Will future generations experience an even flatter plateau where the changes become even more subtle?

And will we still be grappling with crumbling chimneys, or will we all be sweeps, cobblers and fish mongers by then because those are the only jobs left for humans to do?

In which case I take it all back. I’ll grab my penny-farthing and pootle on with my day.

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