Once upon a time in a land far, far away and long, long ago, everything used to be enormous, take for example money, which was so large and so heavy that people carrying seventeen and six in loose change would walk with a pronounced limp.
Half a crown weighed approximately two pound four ounces, at least it seemed like it did and should one need to carry enough pennies for change of a pound one would need two hundred and forty of the things. Two hundred and forty, I hear you ask, why such an odd number, well from recollection and bear in mind it’s some considerable time since we changed to decimal money, there were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound, therefore 12 x 20 = 240, simple. I can’t remember what the system we used was called but it had something to do with the Romans and their calendar and the birth of the little baby Jesus, or something like that, it all gets lost in the mists of time.
We got clever in 1971 and took on the decimal system and replaced the old money with new micro money, the size of the new coins now reflecting the value of the stuff. Before decimalisation one could venture out for a night on the town, get drunk, buy a fish supper on the way home and still have change from a ten bob note, whereas nowadays one goes to a micro brewery and can’t even purchase a half a pint of beer for ten bob.
Everything has become smaller, look at the suits produced for the youth of today, so little material is used there are virtually no lapels and the trousers are so tight they must require assistance to peel them off at night, it looks like World War Two clothes rationing has come back, only taken to extremes.
This micro technology has had a strange effect on the telephone, the first of which were housed in a large red box, then reduced in size and housed indoors. Micro technology progressed such that the first mobile phone was the size of a car battery but gradually got smaller and smaller until today where we have come full circle.
As the phones became smaller the public demanded more micro technology inside the apparatus and more uses, cameras, calculators, games and the ability to view films and television and the like. We have progressed to a point now where the phone is actually a micro computer, it’s just a shame it’s become so large you can’t get the dam thing in your pocket, ah well, that’s progress.
The Diary of a Country Bumpkin 