New hi-tech 'mirror' to shatter those illusions

Scientists are working on a device that will present a person's future image

Picture how you will look in five years - or try to imagine. I cannot face it. I prefer to dwell on how I looked 20 years ago.

That is, before the ravages of alcohol, a static screen-fixated lifestyle and suppressed emotion in general became apparent. When I look in the mirror I see laughter lines, frown lines, sulk lines, crow's feet and grey hair that I recently managed to dye a colour you might call 'Paul McCartney orange', in a blaze of ammonia.

Presumably, in five years my face will be as lined as a damp linen shirt scrunched in a cupboard. As for my hair ... let's not go there. Suffice to say that, in my family, baldness attacks from more than one angle (top and front) in a deadly pincer movement that would do credit to the legendary general Zuo Zongtang.

I can envisage all the horror for myself. I struggle to see the justification for a hi-tech intervention that finally erases the delusion that I may age gracefully la Sean Connery. But futility has never presented a barrier to the ambition of inventors. In my pad, I have a cupboard whose contents pay homage to Chindogu, the Japanese satiric art of dreaming up pointless inventions.

Mine range from a Segway to a revolving car seat (to help you get out), a video re-winder (to reduce wear and tear on tapes you often play), a portable urinal and, of course, a pocket PC.

Soon, assuming scientists get their act together and that I can afford it, I may add a 'magic mirror' to this treasure trove. The magic mirror is a flat-screen LCD future designed by geeks at Accenture Technology labs near Nice, France.