"She sorta drones on the telly, yeah, what d'ya reckon, hey?" he added ungrammatically, although we got the drift.

Speaking of drones, rather than dish-lickers, we didn't have the heart to break it to the delivery bloke that his gig could be outsourced.

That this cheerful purveyor of steamy comestibles would become a victim of aerial technology with pizzas dropped by drone to one's very home porch.

In Lonnie, wherever.

We hear that researchers at San Francisco's Darwin Aerospace laboratory are working on the world's first airborne food delivery system that, according to news reports, will have tucker parachuted to your doorstep some time around 2015.

"Food delivery experts anticipate the value of the commercial drone industry, already worth almost $A13.6 billion, will skyrocket to more than $82 billion by 2025," Mario Mairena, government relations manager for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said.

As with so many apparently way- out predictions, this is no Buck Rogers In The 21st Century stuff.

Who would have guessed, for instance, that money would one day come from a hole in the wall or phones give you an instant update on what the rellies in WA are up to?

On the matter of pizza delivery, and drones, we recall another friendly after-dark meeting between a pizza guy and this consumer of crust-based marinara and chook- driven food.

Oh yes, plus aluminium foil- wrapped garlic bread.

The nocturnal delivery and transaction occurred up the street rather than at the front door.

Driven by hunger, we had identified the main man's arrival after hearing a vehicle a bit of a way along our quiet road.

The would-be deliverer apologised for "having a bit of trouble with the address".

"I don't know Lonnie that well, I'm from Brissie," said the man as he balanced the zipped and huge container in one hand and a small torch to identify street numbers in the other mitt.

He said he was in Tassie for work and decided on the pizza delivery sideline as a way of getting to know the place and the people.

How innovative. You can only wish people well who do that sort of thing.

It's a shame that this deliverer, and his enterprising breed, may join the legion of redundant occupations and trades along with coopers, saddlers and linotype operators.

That drones will leave the pizza shop to head unerringly to the customer thus completing the automation of a process that began with telephoning a chick and now a pizza being delivered from the skies - our comment is that there is enough of this high-flying hardware around already, let alone hovering pizzas.

Mind you Launcestonians, especially, are well enough used to noisy planes in the wide blue yonder plus enough choppers hovering every day to see an Apocalypse Now remake.

That's mainly because the city's airport is to the south of the metropolis.

So familiar are we with this that any locals patiently waiting for the arrival of relatives and friends barely have time to exclaim "Look, in the sky, it's Aunty Gladys", before heading off to the airport to pick up the dear old soul who has waited mere moments at the "two-minute limit" parking sign.

How different to Hobart where the skies are generally quiet, what with the "international" airport being so far out to the city's north that locals last month complained when Tasmania Police conducted chopper exercises over the 'burbs.

Slobart, indeed.

Meantime, if you hear a noise overhead, that may not be auntie arriving by plane from Melbourne so much as a drone delivering your dinner.

Either that, or your telly's on a bit loud and Christine Milne's going on about mining in the Tarkine.