Future Prefect

All of you please just stop it, stop it, stop it, now.

About 10 people have just tweeted me this in the last 5 minutes, and it's arsewash.

I'm referring of course to the trapped-in-the-90s dinner party nihilist Douglas Coupland's (recent) smugger-than-thou article about things we might expect to see in the future.

Now, I know he's half-joking, and I know you lot probably think you're half-joking as well when you re-tweet it, but listen - the only reason it's rocketed round the internet so quickly is because you all obviously suffer the same anxieties he's (smugly, satirically) describing, and which you all desperately want to see vindicated, not least so you can slap yourselves on the back, tweet "I told you so!" and get a job as a digital planner, scuffling for a peek down the future's top for the rest of your days.

But.

Surely the only thing any of these kinds of predictions or "insights" can ever describe accurately are the current flavour of nuroses amongst the urban population.

Why do I say this? Well, because I live in the country. So when I go home tonight I won't be worrying, writing or tweeting about the potential impact of cloud-computing, or any of the other unknowable bullshit certain segments of the advertising industry thrive on. No, I'll be concerned with whether or not I'll need lights to go cycling this evening.

And I find this kind persepective stops me sounding like a smug, pretentious, dinner party bell-end.

Well, when I'm not at work at least.