Twenty years ago, we thought the future would see us travelling on monorails and having plenty of free time. But it seems we're more slaves to the workplace that ever.

SO what happened to all this free time then? You remember - about 20 years ago the experts were telling us we were all going to be working a 20-hour week and retiring at 45. It was a vision of the future that seemed to go with wearing pastel catsuits - think early Star Trek - travelling on monorails and having two tablets and a health drink for supper. The big problem, we were told, was how we would spend all that leisure time. Ha!

Instead, we are now working the longest hours in Europe. The European Court of Justice is investigating complaints that Britons regularly work more than a 48 hour week. A recent survey said many people work more than 60 hours.

The problem is working out why. After all, we were promised all those years ago that robots would fill the factories and computers would do the office work. Basically, we'd just have to pop in every now and then to make sure everything was ticking over. And in some ways, that's just what has happened.

Machines do our cleaning, supermarkets do our cooking and it's a very long time since women made most of their family's clothes. Compared to our grannies, we have lives of ease and comfort.

So where has the time gone?

Not only are we not working any less, but we're probably going to have to work a lot more. Buying a house needs two full time wages now - if you can even get a mortgage in the first place. And pensions are so rubbish that more of us will have to work until we're at least 110.

We even have a new phrase, "time poor" - which means the rich have no time to do their own shopping, walk their own dog or even buy their own presents. And the poor have barely time to breathe.

We have snack food because we have no time for meals, credit cards because we have no time to save and txt msgs because life's too short to write things out in full.

But the irony is that life isn't short at all - most of us are living longer than any generation before us. It's just that we're all so busy, the years pass in a flash.

So the experts got it all wrong. Still, at least they were wrong about the pastel catsuits too.

If it wasna' for your wellies... Yes, the latest fashion craze in New York is for wellies - checked, tartan, spotty, stripy or just plain old boring green, they are suddenly the footwear of the famous. How reassuring to know that Paddington Bear, Billy Connolly and I were, for once, ahead of the trend...

I ONCE stood in front of the toothpaste counter in Tesco and counted 37 different varieties and became paralysed with indecision. Now there are apparently 47. And are our teeth any whiter?

American social scientist Barry Schwartz has now written a book saying that the more choice we have, the less we like it. Instead of being happier, we're just confused.

That's why it's so restful to shop in Aldi, Netto or Lidl. No luxury of choice there - just one, or at the most, two brands of anything. Certainly cuts down on the dithering, as well as the shopping time and the bills.

A NEW drug to help memory will, of course, be a miracle for those suffering from Alzheimer's or the distressing side-effects of old age.

But sometimes forgetfulness is a blessing. Who wants to remember every pain and tragedy of their lives as sharply as the day it happened? If we did that, we could never cope, never move on, just be doomed to relive it over and over again.

Come to that, I can still wake up in a cold sweat at the memory of some ghastly embarrassment more than 25 years ago.

There were many, many more. Thank goodness I've forgotten them.

MEN are much more optimistic than women about the economic outlook for the country and their families, says a new survey. Maybe that's because it's not men who have to juggle the housekeeping.

OH no - Disney want to make a film of the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Considering what a pig's ear they made of Winnie the Pooh (My dear, those American accents) they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it.

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