ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

When conversation down the Gelded Seahorse Hotel turns to technology, a local cabinetmaker laughs and dips his moustache into his room-temperature Resch’s.

“What a load of shit,” he’d say.

“I don’t even know how to turn one of those fucking things on!”

“You won’t find me going to one of those bloody classes, either! Those geriatrics drooling on themselves just to learn how to watch a couple blue movies! Nope, this old cowboy is happy just the way things are! [laughs]”

Martin Franklin, a 70-year-old cabinetmaker at A & C Timbercraft in the Flightpath District, might laugh now but unbeknown to him, his bosses are already looking to the future.

The town’s first robotic workers are on the way, the boss of A & C says they’re currently on the boat from China.

And when they get here, it will spell the end of Mr Franklin’s career.

“We’re not going to unfairly dismiss anybody,” said A & C’s Leonard Dawson.

“Our workers are family, Mr Franklin is going to receive arguably the most generous severance package this side of the Grey Range that anyone’s seen. Two years’ pay and an option to work part-time.”

Tragically, the small business needs to enjoy someone to maintain and programme the robots.

“None of them know even how to turn on a computer.”

More to come.

