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From doubting the future of TV to being sure we'd vanquish the common cold, the crystal ball gazing of the past could be a bit ropey.

Jump in your hovercraft and nip to the airport for your holiday on the moon - don't worry about breakfast, there's a pill for that. But don't think about checking your flight times online - the internet will never catch on.

The past is a curious place - and the future imagined there is curiouser still. Here are 10 of the predictions that didn't quite meet the mark.

IT'LL NEVER CATCH ON - EXCEPT IT DID

The internet is just a fad

In the early days of the internet, a number of people saw it as a flash-in-the-pan idea. In 1995, Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, said: "I predict the internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse."

Mr Metcalfe proceeded to eat his words - literally - during his keynote speech at the 1999 International World Wide Web Conference, where he blended up a copy of his printed column with some liquid and drank it.