Our Modern Gadgets Are My Childhood Fantasy Come to Life
Inspector Gadget and the Swiss Army knife paved the way for the iPhone
When I was eight, I got a Swiss Army Knife for Christmas. At that age, this was the most exciting thing to ever happen to me. It had scissors, tweezers, a toothpick, a tin opener, a knife. Everything. The fact the scissors were essentially unusable, I had never picked my teeth, and wasn’t allowed to open tins because of the sharp edges, was neither here nor there. It had capabilities and was packaged into a nifty device. It was a gadget, and pretty much the best gadget you could own.
I was fascinated by gadgets. Especially small or secret ones. Compact things that folded out with multiple functions were very much my bag — and in my bag. I had a tiny key ring camera (which I never used because I couldn’t find film small enough), a tiny compass (even though knowing north was of no use or interest to me), and magic secret ink (which again remained unused — saved for an emergency which predictably never arose).
Gadgets were something from television and film: James Bond and his cars and belts and suitcases. Or Wallace and Gromit with its Heath-Robinson contraptions that put on trousers and fried eggs. Even the eponymous Inspector Gadget: quite literally half man half gadget. In the…
