Science Faction

Alleles coding for steel, brass, something black and copper mix and intertwine producing little-capped phenotypes. All anyone needs for a successful harvest is plenty of juice to feed the crop with, a bit of cash to enrich the soil and an ability to forget what the last harvest was like. It is so predictable I’m beginning to feel Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, had a point with his inherited characteristics theory.

Suffice to say I’ve been waiting for a development in dripping technology that makes me go wow. Something produced by thinking outside the seed box; something more than a deeper well or the ability to quad-coil. It doesn’t look like anything is going to spring up any time soon so I reckoned a few suggestions might be in order

The Razor Approach: science and technology have given men the ultimate in shaving technology at least seventeen times a year for as long as I can remember. The first step is to forget single and dual-coils – what we need are six, then eight then nineteen-coil drippers released in consecutive months.

The Wild West Approach: You’ve finished your beans, a gnarly guy dressed all in black enters the town and you need to take him and his gang out – you don’t want to spend hours reloading guns when you could be having all the shooting people dead fun. This is why the 6-shooter auto loader was invented. We, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘me’ require coil auto loaders. Pop some wire and wick in the top, press down and shazam! Instant wicks and coils pressed into place with no need for screwdrivers.

The On-demand Approach: Who bothers going to football matches anymore? Well, quite a few people. I’m not sure of the actual numbers but I’m betting it’s more than 1,023. That’s not important, what is key here is that loads more people like to be able to watch football from the comfort of their armchair where you can indulge yourself in abusive language, excessive drinking and food that tastes like food to your heart’s content. Sky need to build a Jodrell Bank of giant dripping atomisers with a network of pipes to every home in the UK. Order the juice using the controller, pull the mouthpiece from the vaping chair and toke away.

Let’s blue-sky this thing, all the previous ideas could easily be achieved now using current technology and a flagrant disregard for cost and practicality. But the genus Homo hasn’t got to where we are now (stuffed-crust pizza, pet rocks and Hello magazine) without looking to the future and doing some really stupid things.

The Star Trek Approach: Jim is on the bridge with Bones, Spock and the person without a name who won’t see out the episode. On the planet below something is amiss. Do they catch a bus? Do they wait for it all to blow over? Heck no – they jump on the matter transporter. Do I want to wait for my wick to carry juice to the coil? No. I want instant vapour. I want a transporter on the desktop that will carry juice directly onto the coil – not wicks, no leaks, leaving me to quiet vape contemplation about my Klingons.

The future is out there.