A very Happy New Year to all our readers.

Ah, January: season of sales and short-lived off-the-booze resolutions. What can one say about January?

What poignant memories this fresh and unblemished first month of yet another new year always brings! In the good old days, when the dates neatly coincided with those of a nearby ‘adult entertainment’ convention, Bankstone News always used to pretend to be heading off to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas each January.

Alas they’ve b*ggered the timings up now, and Vegas in January is off the agenda for your roving reporter. But for the purposes of this story, let’s pretend it isn’t. Let’s pretend we’re reporting to you live and direct from the Strip in a break between sessions on virtual reality, neural enhancement wearables, and next generation smart helmets.

Robots are once again grabbing the headlines at this year’s CES here in Vegas. Pepper, a three-foot high ‘companion’ robot, offers its owners ‘hugs’ on demand. Buddy, a cross between the original ‘screen on a stick’ iMac and a self-directing robo-vac unit, does something akin to what those ancient geese did for the Roman Capitol back in the day, guarding against intruders when you’ve popped down the Forum or whatever. Evil data traitor Edward Snowdon even appeared in the guise of a robot.

Much to the relief of lawyers everywhere, however, one robot that hasn’t been unveiled here in Vegas is the much feared robo-lawyer. It’s non appearance helps allay, for another year at least, fears that robots will soon replace the vast majority of functions currently performed by lawyers.

This welcome reprieve is clearly something to be celebrated. Despite the best efforts of roboticists and the UK Government, human legaloids live to fight another day!

Jolly good thing, too, we say here at Bankstone News.

Don’t miss next week’s Bankstone News, in which we bid a fond adieu to erstwhile motoring correspondent Davey Sim with a special souvenir edition featuring his (very) final test drive.

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