HUMOUR: The U.S. space agency NASA once spent millions developing a pen that would write in a non-atmospheric environment. The Russians replied, ‘We use a pencil.’

A friend once boasted that if you pressed a little button on his new watch, the hands lit up. I asked him if he had never heard of a luminous watch.

Why do we make our lives so complicated, and for what purpose? I learn that a single edition of the New York Times contains as much information as would be acquired in an average man’s lifetime a couple of hundred years ago.

Adding to my store of useless knowledge, there is much more high-tech in my mobile phone than there was in the first spacecraft.

I suppose in some ways it can be argued that we have all benefited from the remarkable advances that have taken place over the last decades.

The next frontier to be broken down is surely the simplification of gadgets. Many of today’s aids to modern living are beyond comprehension.

Purchasing a digital camera, I rejoiced that the device was small enough to fit neatly into my shirt pocket; Sadly, the instruction manual, which needed downloading, was the size of a London telephone directory.

This isn’t my problem; it is our problem, for we are becoming programmed to look for difficult rather than simple solutions. Why is there a reluctance to explain gadgets in a comprehensible way? I can well imagine someone replying to NASA’s scientists that the pencil solution is too simplistic.

Having failed to master all except the basics in many household gadgets, I once conceded that I had technophobia; like any other disability, I kept it to myself.

That was until a national newspaper tested the general population on their ability to use gadgetry common to modern households.

It was discovered that over 80 per cent of us cannot quite get the hang of programming devices, remote controls or putting things together. In fact, I emerged with honors.

There is something about the human condition that strives for change, whether it is necessary or not. They boast of multi-million-euro fighter jets that can drop a $1 million bomb on a Bedouin tent costing zilch.

They brag about advances in ICTV surveillance, including facial recognition and state-of-the-art early detection systems. But crime is out of the roof.

Years ago, a couple of Swedish self-publicists flew a light aircraft unimpeded in and out of Soviet controlled Belarus territory. At the height of the Cold War, a German student flew unseen and undetected a single-seat Cessna right across the USSR and landed it in Red Square.

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Thanks to my PC, I can listen to the most obscure radio stations broadcast from the Urals to the depths of the Arizona hinterland. In fact, I like two radio stations and I have no need for the other million radio stations.

Two newspapers used to be enough: one national, one local. They kept me occupied for hours. Now I have millions of news information sources to choose from, but I no longer purchase newspapers: I don’t even read the freebies.

As Albert Einstein surmised: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” You can and should share this story on social media: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

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