On a very pleasant Saturday afternoon this weekend just passed the kids were having a run in the playground. The usual fare: JC was busy trying to get her hair caught in one of those spinning death trap things, while PB was conducting experiments with gravity and her body. The regular afternoon bonhomie was rudely interrupted by a loud screech of radio static. A girl of twelve took the walkie-talkie from her pocket and proceeded to tell her father that should be home soon.

Several things struck me about this. In the not that long-ago time when I was young, walkie-talkies (working or not) were important elements of the international fantasy spy game that all kids play. How else could you contact International HQ to say you had caught one of the despised enemy and were busy looking on the other side of the park for the others? They often came in handy as tools for subduing said enemy if it came to it too. And like all kids our parents had an extremely convenient child retrieval system: their voices. A bellowed "Dinner time" would quickly see children running from all ends of the park to our homes. It wasn't much, but it worked.

Now it seems walkie-talkies have moved on. Now their a convenient way for parents to keep in touch with their kids. Which was formerly done by mobile phones. And which before that was done in the old fashioned manner of voice or the even more old fashioned manner of "Be home by 6pm or die." There's a lot to be said for the old fashioned way of doing things. Not using a walkie-talkie to help save the world from evil seems like a complete waste of technology. What's even more disturbing are the two sets of Barbie walkie-talkies JC received for her 3rd birthday.

I never knew there was an international Barbie HQ.