From a Quest magazine that I bought in 1989, in a small illustrated sidebar called "Into The Future - Keeping In Touch":
"Portable phones may soon be everywhere. The user will need to be near a public 'callpoint,' which picks up radio signals from the portable phone.
Wherever he is, the person being called will be alerted by the radio pager built into his own portable phone, which will display the name and phone number of the caller.
When he gets close to the closest callpoint, he will be able to hold a normal phone conversation with the person calling him with no outside interference."
Ah, the future will be so grand, won't it, Quest.
But why was I reading Quest at all? Well, for some reason, I was feeling nostalgic... I think it's probably all this jibber-jabber in the media of recent times in regards to the shocking literacy rate in this hyar country... apparently, dig this, some people can't read.
And now there's this whole big battle being played out in the letter pages of the nation's newspapers as to whether the Phonics system of learning is better than the Whole method - which made me think, how did I learn to read?
Perhaps I should ask my mother, I thought.
I eventually found her at the bottom of a 3 metre deep hole in her backyard.
"Do you want a hand getting out?" I enquired politely.
She declined.
"I'm fine," she said, "Don't worry about me!"
Then she told me about how I learned to read.
Apparently, I couldn't read at all until somewhere in the middle of Grade 1.
Now, if I was in Grade 1 today, and I couldn't read... well... I'd probably be in some sort of remedial program, or something of that ilk.
But I wasn't in Grade 1 today. I was in Grade 1 back then... It was a different time.
The thing was, I could easily recite books from memory, but I had no clue about the individual words. It was all just a bit too much.
And then... one day... it just clicked.
After a combination of the Phonics and Whole Methods over the years... and not being able to read anything at all... one day I came home from school... and I could read EVERYTHING.
In fact, it wasn't just any old day of the year. It was the day before Good Friday.
In fact, I'd visited a church that day, as part of my secular public school education.
In fact, the awesome power of Jesus had taught me to read. It was a miracle.
I came home, and I could suddenly read all my readers, and all my Thomas The Tank Engine books...
And then...
"Mummy... do we have a bible?" I was heard to ask.
In fact, I wanted to read more stories about Jesus. I opened up the Bible and started at Genesis. My mother informed me that I'd probably have to skip through it a bit if I wanted to read about Jesus.
Then she distracted me with some shiny al-foil until I went back to growing up as a well-adjusted agnostic.
Anyway, the point is this: All of a sudden, this whole new world had opened up.
I could read, man. I could fucking read. And fast!
Paul Jennings, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and R.L. Stine made up most of my childhood reading list (the latter being popcorn to be consumed hurriedly between real books) but there was also... Quest.
Collectible magazines... about science. Science, eh, I might have said. That sounds like it might be awesome. I collected them voriciously.
And that's why I thought of Quest when I thought of literary-based nostalgia.
I thought to myself... it'd be interesting to read the most interesting of the Quest magazines - the one that I remember most - the special christmas issue which was full of stuff about movie magic and the like, and could arguably have been described as the thing that set me off on my current career trajectory.
I didn't find it, but I did find this.
Oh, I was so misled.
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