HOW did you visualise the future when you were young. Was it all Dan Dare-style hover-traffic and Art Deco spaceships; or did growing up in the Cold War inspire a bleaker prospect – post-apocalyptic desolation? Child of the Fifties Richard Foster th
ought that by now he'd be wearing a silver jumpsuit and jet-packing around a world free of sickness and poverty.
Things haven't quite turned out that way, and in three Essay spots, entitled "The Future's Not What It Used To Be", he examines the shape of things to come as imagined across a century. On Monday he contrasts two predictive novels from the late 19th century. Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, of 1888, visualised Boston in 2000 as running on credit cards, radio sermons and shopping delivered via a tube system – a vision which so horrified arts and crafts guru William Morris that he responded with News From Nowhere, his utopian vision of a Britain of agrarian communities based on common ownership.
Things are less than utopian these days in Scotland when it comes to restoring old, listed buildings. In The Investigation, Lesley Riddoch examines claims that heavy-handed planning regulations on replacement materials and design are pricing such projects out of the reach of the average Scot. She speaks to would-be restorers of a steading on Benbecula who have fallen foul of Historic Scotland legislation and claim that they can't afford the escalating electricity bills created by draughty doors and windows, but HS won't allow them to fit the recommended solar panels.
Riddoch confronts HS chief executive John Graham and Culture Minister Linda Fabiani, whose houses really need to be put in order.
The full article contains 303 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
