Would you fly in an aircraft where the only fuel on board is in the co-pilot’s lighter?

So Loganair, the pioneering puddle-jumping outfit that calls itself Scotland’s National Airline, is trying to pull off a world first by having the first electric planes.

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, an extra-long extension cable will be required. Not while it’s flying – that’s just silly. I can just imagine what will happen at Stornoway. The pilots will just park up the plane at the terminal building, reel out the long extension cable and head inside to look for a spare socket to charge up the old bird.

It will probably mean Jeanette, Davie and Ivor and the rest of the Loganair staff will have to unplug the kettle for a bit. Operational requirements will take priority over sipping Nescafe and Tetley. Sorry, guys.

You’ve got to love technology. Sometimes you have to just take a step back and think to the way things were just 25 years ago.

No smartphones, no social media, very basic internet with modems that went brrrrr-beeeewheee, and we were still using VHS video cartridges.

Then came the revolution in audio-video technology, and the follow-up to the CD that arrived in the 1980s was the digital versatile disc in 1995. What a difference. High-quality playback and you did not have to risk life and limb by sticking a knitting needle in them to free a chewed tape. What a brilliant advance. Heard the latest? The DVD is dead.

Yes, DVDs are being phased out after just 23 years. John Lewis, will not be getting any more stock after they have cleared the shelves. When they’ve gone, they’ve gone.

The other shops will obviously follow soon after because sales are tumbling. People are downloading their movies now.

Have you just bought a DVD player? Bad luck. Yes, you can try to start a campaign but it won’t work.

There has been a revival of vinyl because the sound quality is actually superb – as long as it is not scratched – and because you get a big interesting picture to hold and show off to your mates.

Whoever held up two Churchillian fingers and said of a small, almost-unreadable DVD case that it was “really cool and groovy, man”? Nah, didn’t think so. It is not about nostalgia.

There is no sign of a revival in the fortunes of the horrible, fiddly, aggravating unfit-forpurpose monstrosity we knew as the compact cassette, for example. Until some sentimental boffin in an ivory tower somewhere can think of ways to also stop it being chewed up, it is doomed to be forgotten in the mists of time – and a good thing, too.

Back in the days when Loganair was young and we recorded Radio Luxembourg by starting and stopping it before the DJ spoke, the quality was not the best.

Oh, stop that mawkish, dewy-eyed fondness. Be honest. There was a constant noise going swisssssssss.

Ah, the Swiss. Now there is an inventive nation which also has a reputation for quality and service. And they really like everyone to know that. They stick the nameof their country or some form of it on just about everything.

You’ll find the word Swiss emblazoned in giant letters on the national airline, Swissair.

Most of Europe makes cheese but the Swiss claim to make the best, and better chocolates than the Belgians.

And which army makes these all-purpose pocket knives?

Watches, there’s another thing the Swiss boast about. They even combined the words Swiss and watch to give us the Swatch. Good job it wasn’t made in Croatia. Can you imagine it? What’s the time? Hold on, I’ll just look at my Crotch.

Technology makes people tell fibs. A high street shop chain recently monitored how many people actually studied the terms and conditions for ordering from their website. They found only 3% scrolled through them at normal reading speed, suggesting everyone else did not peruse them properly, or at all.

Yet 100% of the people who browsed the site had ticked the box for: “I have read and agree to the terms and conditions”.

Me? Nope, never done that. Well, maybe once. Actually, all the time.

Plug-in planes will be fun but the most useful technology is texting.

Very simple and very cheap communication, if you have a very complicated and very expensive phone. How did we ever manage without the dashed thing?

Texting is amazing. It does our thinking for us. In a millisecond, predictive texting works out what we want to write and writes it before we have had a chance to. It is magnificent.

However, I am not sure about its close cousin, autocorrect.

I remember hearing that a young police cadet texted her friend to say: “My unicorn is ready. I will be out on patrol by Friday.”

I would quite like to be pulled over in Cromwell Street by a cop on a unicorn, whether she was in a uniform or not.

Beware, autocorrect has become our worst enema.

What’s the time? Hold on, I’ll just look at my Crotch

Notions of electric planes prompt Iain to meditate on the march of progress and how the world has changed in the last 25 years