here's David Stubbs take from a few years ago on the "future that never arrived" meme

and here's a thoughtful post from Stuart Candy, a researcher in "alternative futures" at the Hawaii Research Center for Future Studies, at his blog the Sceptical Futuryst

and sort of on the retro-futurist/neostalgic tip, someone at Dissensus posted a link to this Nanny Tango Radio stream of a 1973 curio involving John Baker of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a sort of radio-documentary called "Carry On London". Haven't got very far into it yet, but so far instead of a dense daubing of synthetic bleeps and wzoots , the music's been more things like a bizarre trad-jazzy version of Cockney music hall fave "My Old Man Said Follow the Van"--I'm thinking this must be that same woman who's scatting in the background of the pub fight scene in Alfie while chairs go flying past her head...