Of all the questions, my favourites were the technology ones. The Biggest Dredger, the Longest Bridge, the Fastest Train. Marked out by emphatic capitals and unequivocal superlatives, commonly accompanied by a black and white photograph, this was the work of engineers and the world to which I aspired. Technology was big things, fast things, noisy things - but above all it was things.

This predisposition, to see engineering as about things, was reinforced by another childhood influence. ‘Tomorrow's World’, the BBC science programme, was what the geeky child of the early 1970s moved on to after having outgrown ‘Thunderbirds’ and ‘Joe 90’. The programme showcased new products alongside cool science experiments and the message was clear, tomorrow's world was achieved through 'inventions' - the television you can wear on your wrist, the inflatable hovercraft - enthusiastically endorsed by the presenters Raymond Baxter and James Burke.

The reason for this retrospective is not (simply) a bout of forty-something nostalgia. But rather to point out that when talking about technology and, in particular when looking to the future, we are naturally predisposed, or perhaps programmed, to talk about things as against processes.