Whenever I see a T in a Circle Cabin Cruiser like the one Will O sent in this week
I always admire the cool and colourful box art on the side
Having inadvertantly subscribed to NOW TV for a month I've been cramming in as much Westworld watching as I can late at night when everyone's in bed.
I loved Yul Brynner's original Terminatoresque madbot gunslinger when I was a kid (never seen Futureworld though), so I was sad when I only saw a bit of HBO's epic series first time round. It went pay to view I think and vanished.
This time I'm properly captivated and thoroughly enjoying it.
Oddly, I adore the late Michael Crichton's view of the world, that large-scale man-made networks, in his particular case theme parks, will eventually screw up and break free. The very definition of SNAFU!
I only need to consider BBC News coverage of Vogue's controversial debut use of a female AI supermodel in this month's mag to see how its starts, artificial perfection. But hey, maybe I'm just watching too much Westworld so ignore me!
Anyways, the series is phenomenal and the slow collapse of the park's systems and the growing sentience of the liberated and vengeful cyborgs (is that what they are? Or are they androids?) is riveting. Like a town full of Terminators!
I'm currently at a point where the story arcs of pivotal characters, both robot and human, are coming to a head and intriguing new beginnings beckon.
There's a whiff of a new park round the corner too, Samurai World!
I simply cannot wait!
Do you like Westworld readers? I wonder if there's ever been any toys or collectables?
At Center Parcs last week we were partly served by a robot in a pizza joint.
A human lady took our order but the food travelled from the kitchen to us on a trolley droid, after which, the human lady then still placed the meals on our table.
I imagine in some tech-drenched countries the human lady is no more and all her functions have been replaced by machines. Maybe even the cooking itself, with droid chefs roasting chickens and testing the soup!
I'm unsure what I feel about the ongoing robot and AI creep into our lives. It seems unstoppable. How far will it go?
The Thunderbirds boy in me loves it, the old luddite Sixty something not so much.
Is this the future Century 21 showed us and I just can't see it fully yet?
What do you think about robots among us readers?
It's 32 years since we were last at Centre Parks in Sherwood Forest with our then 8 year old daughter but with a new generation of Grandchildren to holiday with, we find ourselves here once again.
The basic concept has stayed the same, chalets in a forest for staying in and car-free woodland roads for cycling on. A simpler life, which feels safer, but unfortunately costs a packet.
If you can ignore the fleeting notion that you're in the Truman Show or Westworld, there is something here in this concept. There's no doubt in my mind that a car-free village like this is a helluva lot of fun for families, you g and old alike. The cycling alone is so refreshingly easy and if you're like me, a complete novelty, as I retired from cycling with a Raleigh Chopper in the mid-1970's!
Maybe there's a future somewhere, sometime, where towns are much smaller, everyone leaves there vehicles at the perimeter in vast car parks and cycles to and from home on car-free streets.
Have you been to Centre Parcs or a Forest village resort!
A friend, Reka, is a future consultant to business.
She published a card game of future jobs.l, Future Journey
Here are a few.
What do you think?
I adore this!
Do you like it?
I chanced upon this online snap of an old wreck found in a barn.
I had to find out what that amazing design was.
Turns it it was called the Box Brubaker.
What a van-car!
How totally futuristically-Hot Wheels-looking is that!
I keep seeing more and more futuristic tail-lights on UK roads at night.
Here for instance is a Lexus with its snazzy and hypnotic red strip.
This German road-hugging truck is simply fabulous!
Straight out of Thunderbirds, this 1983 Steinwinter looks super duper slick.
Oddly I can't find any online footage of this amazing road train actually in transit.
Is it sadly vorgessen?
Do you like it?
This is crazy!
Like a Saturn V leaving the VAB! But its a gigantic bus!
What is going on?
I'm continually blown way by the late American futurist Syd Mead's fabulous vehicle concepts like his early '60s US Steel ads. It staggers me that he could think these up as the 1950's were just fading. Do you like them?
There's something Meadish in the vehicle illustrations of the Project SWORD Annual 1968. Maybe the Century 21 and TV21 artists were inspired by Syd? What do you think?
I love this retro cotton wool space ball container from the Seventies. It should be on the set of Thunderbirds or UFO. It probably was!
Was there anything like this in your parental home?
Yesterday I watched a towering thin chimney being demolished. I'd always liked it as I went about my work and was sad to see it go. The huge white tube reminded me of the Saturn V!
I've always enjoyed seeing the space race in architecture, whether it be real or imagined like the chimney rocket.
With a childhood diet of space missions and cosmic mysteries it was inevitable I would be drawn to the New Age as a teenager. I read Daniken's Chariots of the Gods with gusto [did you?] and Hitching's World Atlas of Mysteries, which I adored and still have in the bookshelf.
Like many of you my passion for outer space and its mysteries spilled over into magazines, TV and records. One album I loved was featured in Roger Dean's Views, the amazing rocket steeple on the cover of Rameses' Space Hymns.
I must have stared at that painting for hours and even now I can't look at a church without thinking that the steeple's a rocket! Somehow it seems fitting that they should be cosmic vessels, perhaps even space arcs heading for a new Earth!
A couple more sites that I really like are the rocket testing battery on the Needles, Isle of Wight, where the old Black Arrow was fired up. We visited it a few years back.
Perhaps though, the most iconic of all space-age buildings I've ever seen were the 'golfballs' of RAF Fylingdales perched on top of the moors near Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.
Here's a remarkable image of them being constructed in the Sixties as part of the Cold War [seen on Corridor 8]. Truly arresting, the futuristic spheres were removed in 2006 and replaced with a small pyramid. Did you get chance to see the balls?
Have you a favourite space age building or bit of space building art readers?
I've been drooling over Randy Grubb's American workshop.
He's like the king of chromium plating!
In an Art Deco world Randy would be royalty. Just take a look at his chrome motorbike, the Decoson.
