Do you find new technology mind boggling? By new I mean anything that you did not personally know about this time last week. Do you find recent innovations mind boggling? By recent I mean anything that has happened since you left school.

You obviously think you know about technology otherwise you would not be reading this on a device of some sort, but do you know how it actually works? If you do, please let the rest of us know. For most of us the mysterious workings are akin to alchemy or the dark arts. Chips are involved and are made of silicone, rather than potatoes and silicone is made from sand. There is plenty of sand on the beach, but what happens next?

On line workings are supposedly run by AI, or computers as we used to call them, but how come these logical beings have a very human urge to deliberately annoy us?

I can do all sorts of things on line, but Arty Imp lulls me into a false sense of security and confidence. Browsing wallpaper on B&Q’s site on my desk top ( I like to see everything on a large screen ) it offered to send samples for a small remuneration. I put several into the shopping basket, already I could picture how my attic office might look. I put in my order as a guest, it wouldn’t let me, it seemed I had joined B&Q Club when I bought one garden chair on line. I looked up my little notebook and typed in my email and the password I had presumably used last time. It did not recognise it. No problem, just pretend I had forgotten it. Nothing would enable me to get a password they approved of, links were sent to my email, texted to me… I gave up, it would be easier to take two buses to my nearest B&Q where I would not see the wallpapers I liked, because they had already told me they were only available on line… Anyway, not as if it was important… but thinking outside the box later I decided to pretend I was a new customer and use my other email address, Not join the club, say No to being on the emailing list. I did not want any sort of relationship, just the wallpaper samples. My purchase went straight through with reassuring emails and they soon arrived in the post. Of course, obviously if I choose one I like they will not actually let me buy a whole roll…

To check how Tech Savy you are take this simple test.

You want to send money to your nephew for his birthday. Do you

1. Use face recognition or finger print to do a bank transfer on your phone
2. Get on the bus and go to the nearest town that still has a branch of your bank open and talk to a human behind the desk.

It’s your sister’s birthday today, do you

1. WhatsApp her to arrange a time to Facetime
2. Ring her on your landline.

You have not heard from your elderly aunt for a few days, do you

1. Play a round of Words With Friends on your phone and see if she plays back.
2. Call her house phone from your house phone which is firmly tethered by a wire.

You need a relaxing evening after dealing with technology all day, do you

1. Stream a box set of a new drama and stay up all night binge watching
2. Look in the newspaper or Radio Times to see what’s on BBC before the ten o’clock news.

If you answered A to all the questions welcome to the first quarter of the 21^st century, but beware what you will face in this next quarter.

If you answered B every time you just might be able to cope if all the electricity is switched off, perhaps…

But how is the present matching up to the future predicted in the 20th century? We are not sitting at a phone table with a curly wire attaching our phone to the wall and a little TV screen showing a live picture of our relatives on the other side of the world.

The first ‘mobile phones’ most of us saw were on Star Trek, some of us watching in black and white. Their hand held flip up devices could Teleport them down to a strange planet, but they could not take photos, text their friends, watch videos or Facetime with friends on the other side of the universe. It may have slowed the plot if they had to play back on Quiz Planet before stepping on to their platform.

On arrival on the new planet they stop to take a selfie together in front of a strange volcano so they can put it on Instagram. Then Captain Kirk pauses to take a picture of the Aliens who have crept up without them noticing. He wants to WhatsApp a picture to his mother billions of light years away.

Meanwhile a junior officer has not noticed the aliens as he is bending down to snap strange plants using the plant recognition App.

His colleague is glued to the screen exclaiming ‘210 points for OXO, how did he do that and I’ve got all vowels’.

Captain Kirk is now on Google maps, having failed to understand what the Aliens are saying, their language is not coming up on his translation App.

The weather App was not much use either as it failed to predict the electric storm and downpour of acid rain. It seems like a good time to beam up, but their phones need recharging…

Did you score A or B or perhaps AB? What is your favourite 21st Century invention?