Jon Bon Jovi, Little Mix and Jessie Ware

From comedian & writer Paul Kerensa:

I’ve been reading an 80-year-old book, by the first Chief Engineer of the BBC, Peter Eckersley. And some of his premonitions in it are weirdly accurate about technology. In 1941, he wrote... “I have a dream about the future. Against the wall is a translucent screen, with many different programmes, heard by just pressing the corresponding button, on a remote control.”

Peter goes on: predicting cable, high-definition TV... even a device that has news headlines sent to it. From flatscreen TVs to the BBC News app... he sees it all coming. Apparently, he’d badgered colleagues back in 1926(!) to make this tech. The timing wasn’t right – it took another half-century or so. It seems Eckersley’s obsession... was choice. He urged BBC top brass to make local and national shows, with different styles – informal for local, formal for national, he suggested. (I don’t know how formal you think of yourself today Zoe!) He craved different genres at the push of a button, depending on your mood. As a churchgoer – or lately, a church-can’t-goer – that flatscreen TV Eckersley predicted, has offered me virtual Sunday services. That choice he wanted has arrived, with thousands of possible online churches, or book groups, exercise videos, art clubs, ballet lessons (my daughter, not me) – all things we used to turn off our devices to go and do.

By contrast, techno-prophet Eckersley would have had two BBC radio channels, and no television. But choice means I’m at the mercy of my mood. The other week I browsed a few different church services – “They’ve got a fancy orchestra...” “Ooh, high-definition...” “Look at the bookshelf behind that vicar – he must be well-read...” I’m happy to say, I’ve returned to my local church’s live-stream. Our vicar’s also well-read – he just doesn’t need the bookcase to prove it. Choice is a marvellous thing, but... sometimes, I choose to stop choosing. I spent years church-hopping, channel-hopping, not settling at classes and clubs. But I never found happiness flitting around. Happiness, for me, means home, and home means stopping somewhere long enough.

Especially now, we crave to know the future, or at least guess it like Peter Eckersley did. In the meantime, the comfort and community of the familiar, means sometimes I’ll leave the channel-change button – and instead just hit ‘pause’.