Parchment, quills and the cat’s whisker

I remember sitting in my media studies class and bursting out laughing when we heard how radio measured its listenership. Surely our lecturer was having us on? Hand-written diaries that the research audience fill in personally? The hands shot up: “But what happens if you are driving in your car? What happens if you go out and forget your diary? What happens if you don’t know what station you are listening to? What about the music in shops?”

My poor tutor spent the next 45 minutes trying to coax us back to a state of calm, with promises that surely, by the time we graduated and infiltrated the industry, these obvious wrongs would be put right by technology, championed of course by the many outraged victims of the archaic system. I cannot believe, seven years later, that we have not moved on. We’ve put men on the moon, we have aeroplanes, interactive TV, photo-messaging, the pyramids… surely an electronic device that satisfies everyone’s basic agenda can be designed and implemented? I just hope our children’s children’s children won’t have to suffer the same boring public debate that we have endured. However, as it seems the current benefactors are determined to dig their heels in until the bitter end, all I can offer is the hope that early retirement is dished out to those poor devils who have to put up with it all.

Bonnie Frankland

Marketing executive

Granada Sky Broadcasting

London SE1