just the beer light to guide us

Watching the sun rise this morning, over the Amstel River, in Amsterdam.

Last night I'd been driven to a fancy restaurant, in a colleague's new car which is like something from Star Trek. It booted up with a barrage of flashing lights including a head up display onto the windscreen. A few minutes drive and we'd locked radar on to the car in front. The system used the car ahead's speed to guide us. If we switched lanes the auto pilot would speed us up until another car in front was acquired in the speed management system.

Then for parking. The maps on the satnav disappeared and a closed circuit television picture of the kerbside appeared. Touch the screen to show where to park and the car reverse parked into the spot. No hands.

Eventually back to my hotel, with its flat screen telly in the bath. I didn't have time to watch it though, because of the early start this morning to head back to London for another busy day.

Compared with last night, my taxi back to the airport was decidedly less space age, having some difficulty with modest gradients, showing its quarter of a million kilometres on the dial.

Then, much later, after a day of meetings and watching the same sun set, I'm finally back at rashbre central. I've decided I will leave it until another sunrise before I check for the spiders from mars in my own television free bathroom.