KIWI RIDER NOVEMBER 2017 VOL.1 | Page 68

The inexorable march of TECHNOLOGY I by Roger Moroney will start this scrawl with three well-worn words. Wait a minute... that’s ten words. It’s difficult at times to get one’s regular column under full steam so I shall try again, and point out that the three well-worn words we would all have used at some stage of our evolution will follow this sentence. How things change. That’s better. Life, basically, is all about change. It’s like time...it does not stand still. Life and time are the ingredients of that thing called evolution, and progress for that matter. Things change. Crikey, now we’re down to two words. Although since 1984 I sort of loosely worked out that through the regular columns and past features and race reports for this marvellous motorcycling messenger called Kiwi Rider I’ve probably jotted out about half a million words. Before that I crunched out stories and reports for New Zealand Motorcycle News going back to the 70s before joining Pete (Vege) and John (Nick) for an ale somewhere and embarking on the most enjoyable of writing eras with them. I had a fine old typewriter and was most adept at replacing the ribbon every few months, and only twice had to re-start a story after spilling lager over the bloody thing. I was also adept at bashing out stories using just two fingers...and I still only use the two forefingers today. Eventually I got a small Casio electric typewriter and rather pompously considered myself to be Mr Technology. The copy it produced was very clear and crisp and because you wrote a line at a time, before it actually printed that line, you got to correct the errors without a single drop of Twink being used. So yep, I’d type out the race reports onto paper and then take them down to the Post Office and fax them off (fax... wow!) to some poor bugger at KR HQ who then had to compose them into print. Now I sit here and dab away at the well-worn black plastic keys on a flat slab of plastic which is about the size of a flattened loaf of bread. Technology is now a part of all our lives, motorcycling magazines included