When you write science fiction, you tend to extrapolate current trends to picture the future. If you write social science fiction, you will look keenly at cultural trends. Last night, the BBC (which is watchable because they are prevented by statute from bombarding you into submission with commercials every few minutes) provided a neat juxtaposition of one aspect of culture, popular music, 50 years ago and today. What struck me most was the change in the clothing of the musicians. The men in “Sounds of the Sixties” were seen as alpha males at the time, but they'd only dress so flamboyantly these days if they were striving for recognition as gay icons. And almost every part of their body was clothed. On next was the Reading Festival, where the headliners were all stripped to the waist. So how about 2066? Will the disrobing have continued, perhaps to the point of musicians of all sexes appearing starkers except for high-tech tattoos, the shyer ones preserving their modesty with hologram pixelation? Or will a reaction have set in, with performers only appearing as holograms, perhaps not even of themselves but of depersonalised avatars?