The future - past and present

This bit of retro-futurism is the perspex projection room of a 22-seat mobile cinema which has been in Oxford this week. It's the only one remaining of a fleet of seven converted Bedford lorries commissioned in 1967 (by the then Minister of Technology - Tony Benn*, no less) to tour factories to demonstrate modern production techniques. This white-heat idea didn't last long and in 1974 the government sold the cinemas. Six were scrapped for their aluminium but this one was purchased to tour, bizarrely, with the Flying Scotsman train engine for a year. After which it mostly languished until it was found rotting in an Essex field in 2003. Now beautifully restored, it's been touring films for the last three years. It's off to Normandy in France next week then back to East Anglia at the beginning of June.

I learnt about a different bit piece of future this morning when I went to the dentist for treatment for a tooth I broke yesterday. Waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect he told me about current research in dental bio-engineering - growing replacement teeth by combining stem cells and a person's own gum cells. They will then be implanted in the gum and will take root. It never occurred to me that you might be able to use stem cells to grow something as solid and unregenerating as teeth - how amazing.

*Tony Benn is a left-wing UK politician and a powerful speaker who spent his many years as an MP and now spends his retirement saying forcefully what he believes in - equality, justice and human rights - and why. He has frustrated many and been mocked by many but is a rare example of principles-based politics.