Robot butlers

I was complaining to Jen the other day that, when I was a boy, everyone said that, by this time, we’d all have robot butlers and flying cars. But, on reflection, the biggest technological improvements I’ve seen during my life are:

• ring-pulls on cans on beans;
• longer-lasting, less leaky batteries;
• brighter bulbs on electric torches.

Jen reckoned, if they hadn’t frittered away quite so much time on batteries and torches, we would almost certainly have had our robot butlers by now.

Someone got their priorities wrong.