I have just stepped into a futureworld nightmare.

And I have to warn all of you never to dabble. Do not waggle a ouija, ogle a horoscope or toy with Tarot. You won't like what you find. The future's not orange, it's stygian black.

It was my own fault. As soon as I spotted H G Wells' time machine at York Castle Museum, I had to try it. When the staff were not looking I hopped aboard and set the time to the distant future.

I stumbled out into a York I did not recognise.

My first horror was to find that Clifford's Tower had been sold to developers and converted into luxury flats selling at £10 million each.

Every church within the city walls has been sold off to pay for the Minster's upkeep and members of York Civic Trust were first jailed and are now tagged for speaking out against the rape of the city.

Despite the teeming masses of people on the streets there is an unusual quietness about the city. Of course, that's it. There's not a motor vehicle in sight, not even a bus or a taxi, just bicycles and ambulance rickshaws. The city council has banned every internal combustion engine from within its boundaries - with no exceptions - and every car park has been turned into a shopping centre.

That is why there are incredible queues outside all the shops. Their shelves are empty because not even delivery vehicles are allowed inside the city walls.

Fighting is breaking out everywhere because it is not York's day for the monthly visit from the police. Dialling 999 costs £100 a minute on a premium line and the calls are only answered for one hour a day.

Gangs of drunken or drugged wild children rule the streets, preying on the vulnerable with impunity. They know they are immune because anyone who dares resist will end up in court for assaulting The Untouch-ables. And the young animals need to keep pillaging because they have to buy their burgers in the world's biggest McDonalds, formerly the Odeon cinema.

Tourists are shepherded round the city under the protection of armed guards to prevent muggings. Their guides are careful to choose a route avoiding Coney Street and Parliament Street so they cannot be harassed by hordes of beggars; and the city's parks are off-limits to prevent the visitors being abused by street drinkers.

But private security firms are thriving as the better-off residents pay for protection within their gated streets.

Poorer folk have to make do with cameras inside their homes in the hopes that if it does not actually deter burglars stupid enough not to wear a balaclava, the intruder might be identified and caught when the hard-pressed police force has the time to process the video footage.

Rumour has it that the cameras are also being used by the council to look and listen for dissent in the homes of residents.

Older people are ready to revolt because council tax now rises by 80 per cent each year and it is taken out of pensions and wages at the source to ensure there is no default.

At 10am each day the streets suddenly empty in panic. That is when York Science Park sends out its recruiting parties. The park now covers the entire village of Heslington since residents were moved en masse to a new settlement at Osbaldwick, but the voracious hi-tech industries cannot find enough workers in York to keep their microchips moving.

Anyone found in the streets is obviously under-employed so is rounded up by the park's press gangs, herded to the university for re-education and put to work with electro-spectrometers and gamma intensifiers.

Anyone with degrees in media studies, hospitality or tourism is fair game. Only plumbers, bricklayers and electricians are safe from the recruiters. They are species protected by their rarity and strut the streets in their finery granting an audience to customers two years hence.

Enough, enough! Let me get back to my own time.

Perhaps if I get back and act soon enough, I can warp the fabric of time and prevent all this happening to our fair city.

Safely back in the time machine I find to my horror that the master console has been damaged by one of the hordes of local museum visitors enjoying something for nothing during Resident's First weekend.

Aaargh! I am forever stuck in this bleak, nightmare future - March 2004.

Updated: 11:39 Tuesday, February 17, 2004