IN THIS ARTICLE: Crime writer Agatha Christie's endearing supersleuth Miss Marple started life in 1930, in Murder at the Vicarage, as "a nasty old cat" with an unpleasant habit of interfering.
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty.
Nowadays, you probably hear the word neoliberalism used more as a term of abuse — hurled by opponents at economic globalisers, nasty bankers or governments limiting spending on public works or welfare.
It's technology that can fade into the background when you're on a hike or going for a swim but is there to warn you when your heart rate spikes or help you when you've had a nasty fall.
And you know, when young children say really dark things, so genuinely it's very sweet and charming in a sense where, you know, as soon as someone gets older and they become teenager, it's kind of nasty.