NECESSITY is still the mother of invention.

A friend of mine has just been to a "futuristic trade" fair in the Far East where he saw aspects of tomorrow's world.

He confirmed, sadly, that computers will continue to rule every aspect of our lives.

That is very scary following the recent cyber attacks currently taking place.

We are clearly becoming too reliant on new technology.

Alas, we can expect more robots: there is one that does the ironing (is that the start of a global free press?); there are prototype dog collars with built-in chips - canine sat-navs where dogs can take themselves for "walkies".

My friend texted me that there was a suggestion box asking people to come up with things they would like to see that could make life less stressful.

He suggested a mobile phone that you only need to charge up once a year and it stays the distance.

Great idea!

How many times have we had to put up with a phone conking out during journeys, on business or while talking to loved ones?

I suggested, since we have pay-for-view boxing fights in the comfort of our homes, pay-for-video pop concerts where the star isn't a dot on a vast airport hanger-like arena stage but in your own living room.

This means you wouldn't have to put up with drunks singing along to songs you have paid the star to sing and it would also do away with watching people getting up and going to the toilet.

Television, it seems, will become our domestic nerve centre.

We will be able to programme it to delete 'people, celebrities' before they come on screen.

I have my list of telly undesirables already compiled:

  • Fake news 
  • Edwina Currie
  • Paul "I was Princess Diana’s Rock" Burrell ...
  • and Kelvin Mackenzie

Better still, every party political broadcast and cosy edition of The One Show could be deleted.

Now that really is progress.

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TALKING of Tomorrow's World – remember the TV series from 1965 to 2003 where they would highlight the inventions that would shape our lives?

Many inventions seemed pie in the sky to me - until they highlighted something called the mobile phone.

The series is now making a TV comeback.

Some inventions on that weekly programme never saw the light of day or even featured in a James Bond movie.

Yet the presenters seemed so convincing.

I met one of them in a theatre in 1985.

I got chatting to affable Howard Stableford, now a DJ, and I casually asked him the time.

I recall he was holding a glass of red wine in his right hand which he then tilted and duly poured the drink all over my suit as he perused the watch on his wrist.

I looked at him speechless and wished that some white-coated boffin somewhere had invented an on-the spot wine stain remover.

Howard, if you are reading this, I still have the cleaning bill.

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SPOOKY!

I once saw the obituary for Peter Grant plastered all over the newspapers.

It was surreal seeing headlines of my demise, until I was happily brought down-to-earth realising the news was about the former Led Zeppelin manager.

That memory came back to haunt me in a Sunday mag interview I have just read with the famous leather-clad rocker Suzi Quatro.

Sexy Suzie, now on a UK tour and promoting her autobiography called Hurricane, said: "I liked Peter Grant.

"He was a very interesting man and there was much more to him than a fearsome reputation". I like Suzi Q, who is now aged 66.

I was delighted to once be offered a phone chat with her.

Pre-conversation, I recalled disco nights dancing to her hits Can the Can and Devil Gate Drive.

Like most males I pictured her in trademark jumpsuit in her dressing room.

I was lost for words when she eventually answered the phone and said - in her Detroit drawl: "Hi Peter, hold on a moment, I'm just finishing washing the dishes".

Another rock 'n' roll dream shattered.

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MAKING history - modest Anthony Brown is one of Merseyside’s top artists.

I was honoured to be one of his 100 Portraits for his 2008 Capital of Culture touring exhibition in 2008.

I was displayed, so to speak, in two cathedrals.

Now talented Tony, who once had a gallery in Liscard, will help transform Liverpool Lime Street.

He has been chosen by visionary property developers Ion to create a large-scale graphic art work that will act as an impressive welcome to visitors.

He will create what he calls a "Quantum Timeline" to illustrate the legacy of the place once known as Limekiln Lane.

So well done to this graduate from Wirral Metropolitan School of Art.

Maybe this will inspire Merseytravel to 'do up' some of our local station waiting rooms – after all we spend enough time in them.

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WHY do the BAFTA TV awards get the actual televised ceremony so wrong every year?

We now take it for granted that Ant and Dec will walk away with something.

I want to know why we can't have longer programme clips of the nominees and less of the crass acceptance speeches.

Why, when a programme such as Emmerdale wins, do they bring on stage the crew who spend ages getting to the platform in their Sunday best and stand there while someone makes a boring speech and then they all go back to their seats.

What a waste of our time.

More Daftas than Baftas.

Peter Grant