[gmw]

Sort of funny how we can be nostalgic for something that was really only around for a few years. I mean car phones and answering machines of the type used in the story were both quite brief stars on the technological landscape. Indeed, the timing of Dirk Gently (1987) is probably hitting on the peak for both. Dependency and peculiarities of land-line telephones is something that I don't need to be nostalgic about, as I still depend on a land-line (as mobile reception here is dodgy). In 1987 there was still considerable optimism for what computers might become capable of achieving, and this story reflects that.

I doubt if Adams would be all that surprised to discover how far technology has progressed, nor by how little progress has been made with it - if you can accept my distinction. To see the Internet coming, and then to see what it has become. I think his involvement with conservation may have given him a more realistic outlook than many, but also means, I think, that the political landscape would have shaken him rather more than the technological one - but then he'd hardly be alone in that.

I think the technology of the book is both familiar enough, and recent enough, to still work even for younger audiences, although I notice that some comedy like this is considered amusing by younger generations on generational grounds (what those old farts used to get up to) rather than understanding the humour inherent at the time. But what else can we expect? (I see issybird made a similar observation.)