RICHARD ORD: A dystopian future of hedonistic debauchery ... and crisps

Dome sweet dome! One day we may all be living in homes like this.

You can’t beat a good old dystopian future… so much better than this dystopian present don’t you think?

One of my favourite dystopian futures is the one depicted in the 1976 movie Logan’s Run which saw young people living luxurious, hedonistic lives within a giant domed city of the future. Think Center Parcs, but with robots.

The catch (and there always is one) being once you turn 30 you are hunted down and killed. Again, a bit like Center Parcs, only there the adults are hunted down and presented with a very large bill.

The movie starred Michael York as the eponymous hero and Jenny Agutter as the love interest. They spend the movie getting into all sorts of scrapes as they seek sanctuary outside the dome. Logan fights his way out of bother, while his sidekick gets dragged from pillar to post losing various items of her clothing along the way. (Agutter really should have read the small print in her movie contracts which, after The Railway Children, seemed to have a clause insisting she strips off at least once every 90 minutes.)

Anyway, the movie sprang to mind not because of wistful thoughts of Jenny Agutter or hunting down the over-30s, but a trip to Scotland to visit some friends and their new purchase. They’ve bought a dome!

Rather than a huge megastructure of the future, their dome is more modest. It’s really a transparent plastic igloo. There’s a kind of reverse Logan’s Run going on too.

Where in the movie, old people try to flee the dome, at our pals’ house you run to the igloo.

And within the dome, much like in Logan’s Run, all sorts of hedonistic debauchery is encouraged. If, that is, your idea of hedonistic debauchery is beer, wine and crisps.

Their dome has been the talk of the village. No sooner was it put up (a three-day labour of love) than word got out. Not surprising really given it looks like a futuristic display cage. As if an alien has put humans on display in a purpose built, hermetically sealed exhibition pen.

‘Come see the humans in their natural garden habitat feasting on their staple diet of fermented barley and slithers of dried potato slices. Keep you fingers outside the dome.’

Given the nonsense of the real world, retreating to a protected dome ain’t such a bad idea.

Dome sweet dome! Remember you read it here first...