The Retirement Newsletter: The Birthday Issue with Calvin and Hobbs and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Issue Number: -54 — It can’t be my birthday again?

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

Welcome

Welcome to issue -54 — an issue 'celebrating' my birthday.

It doesn’t seem possible that another year has slipped by, but it has.

My birthday

As I said last year in issue -101 — Another birthday — it makes you think!:

"Birthdays are funny things. Why do we celebrate them?"

For me, birthdays are a time for reflection, and this year I have been thinking about what I have got and what I was expecting by the time I reached the ripe old age I am.

I am a fan of Calvin and Hobbs, and I can't believe it is over 25 years since the comic strip ended after its short 10-year run. And, over the Christmas break, I saw a Calvin and Hobbs tweet that made me think, and it was something I touched upon a couple of weeks ago in Issue -56 — Wishing everyone a great 2023. Where is the future we were expecting?

In the recent Calvin and Hobbs tweet, Calvin said:

"Where are the flying cars? Where are the moon colonies? Where are the personal robots and the zero-gravity boots, huh? Where are the rocket packs? Where are the disintegration rays? Where are the floating cities?"

To which Hobbs replies:

"Frankly, I'm not sure people have the brains to manage the technology they've got."

And while I think Hobbs has a very valid point — where are the things Calvin mentioned?

When my grandmother was born, humans had not flown in a powered aircraft. By the time she died, humans had been to the moon. She had seen all of that in some 80 years.

When I was a child, humans set foot on the moon. There was talk of moon bases, robots, and advanced computers. Yet, I have lived around 75% of my grandmother's lifespan, and I don't feel I have seen the rate of advances she saw, or have we?

Let's take a look at Calvin's list.

Calvin's List

What do and don't we have from Calvin's list?

• Flying cars — there are some flying cars, but I have never seen one 'in the wild'. I am glad they haven't taken off (pun intended), as the thought of cars flying around is terrifying.

• Moon colonies — we might get one by 2030.

• Personal robots — we don't have 'personal' robots, but we have some close things. I would argue that the modern washing machine is a robot that does your washing and, in some cases, the drying. We also have robot vacuum cleaners. But sadly, no personal robots to do the ironing or make us a cup of tea.

• Zero-gravity boots — again, Calvin would be disappointed — I'm not.

• Rocket packs — rocket packs, well, jetpacks do exist, but would you use one?

• Disintegration rays — again, something I am glad doesn't exist.

• Floating cities — I doubt that these exist as Calvin would have wanted, but if you think of some large cruise liners, we do have floating cities of a sort.

What was missing from Calvin's list? In other words, what would be on my list?

My list

Growing up, I was into science fiction — Dr Who, Blake's Seven (truly awful), Star Trek and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) by the late great Douglas Adams. The one that I would say had the most significant influence and is still with me today is H2G2. And it is H2G2 that influences my list.

What is on my list?

Moon colonies

Calvin and I agree on this — where are our moon colonies? How can we defend the Earth from UFOsand aliens in the 1980s without a moon base? On the plus side, we didn't lose the moon and Moonbase Alpha on the 13th of September 1999 when nuclear waste on the moon’s far side detonated. (See, I told you I was into my SciFi as a kid.)

Robots

Again, like Calvin, I am asking, where are my robots?

While I am glad that the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation doesn't exist, it would be interesting to chat with Marvin, but not for long. And I could do without the doors. (If you know what I am talking about, leave a comment below.)

Spaceships

I am surprised this wasn't on Calvin's list, particularly as one of his alter egos is Spiff, the spaceman.

Where is my spaceship? Who wouldn't want a Heart of Gold?

"The book"

"The book" is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and out of moon colonies, robots and spaceships, this is the one we have.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a guidebook for hitchhiking around the galaxy. If you think about our modern smartphones and how easily we can access sites such as Wikipedia and travel guides, we do that 'the book' in our pockets.

I often wonder what Douglas Adams would make of smartphones. He was into his tech, and he was into Mac Computers. What would he make of a modern Mac, its operating system, and how the Internet has crept into everyday life?

Computers

One thing from H2G2 that we haven't got, and when I first studied computing and was reading H2G2, I thought we would have by now — super-intelligent computers.

In a way, I am glad we don't have Eddie. While I would admire the computing power, I would find the personality annoying.

When I was studying computing back in the 1970s, we thought that everything would be much more advanced by now. Modern computers are now where we thought they would be in the late 1980s. Where did it all go wrong? Or did it?

What I didn't think we would have

When I was younger, by the time I reached this ripe old age, there were a few things I thought we wouldn't have:

• War in Europe — I didn't expect a war to be raging in Europe.

• The UK not in the EU — after the UK joined the EU, I expected our links to mainland Europe to become stronger.

• A failing health system in the UK — I love the NHS. Having lived aboard and experienced insurance-based medical care in the US and SE Asia, I would take the NHS any day. It was one of the UK's greatest post-Second World War inventions. But, a lack of thinking and investment has crippled it. I fear the government is lining it up for privatisation. I hope I am wrong.

• Global warming — a concept utterly alien to a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, but now we have it. It is a worry, and I hope it is not too late to correct the problems.

• Pollution — This links in with global warming. Some things have got better. My local river is cleaner than when I was a kid. When I was a kid, we had to have a polio vaccination if we spent any time in or around the local river. But standards seem to be slipping, and pollution (and polio) seem to be returning.

• Disease — I thought medicine would advance so far that diseases would be a thing of the past. How wrong I was. We have multi-drug-resistant bacteria, pandemics, and cancer is still a significant problem.

Summary

So, there you have it.

I am about to celebrate another birthday, and I have turned the celebration into a weird trip down memory lane, looking at where, as a kid, I thought things would be by the time I reached this age. At the moment, I feel I can relate to Marvin.

Some of it is depressing, and some of it is not.

Here is to the next year, and by my birthday next year, I will only be a few weeks from retirement. I can't wait.

Next week

Next week, in Issue -53, I will be trying to get my head around some pension gobbledegook and failing.

Why are pensions so hard to understand?

Thanks

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter, and please don't hesitate to share it with your friends or on social media using the buttons below.

If you would like to say 'thanks' for the newsletter, why not buy me a cup of tea?

Until next time,

Nick

PS, If you have something you would like to contribute to the newsletter — a story, advice, anything — please get in touch.