2 hours ago
2
‘We wish you peace,” said Tony Blair as the clock struck 8pm. It was New Year’s Eve 1999, a Friday night, and I was on the banks of the Thames. Britain’s fresh-faced prime minister – only two years into the job – was giving a gimmick called The British Airways London Eye its first spin. The Eye was physically unremarkable and harrowingly slow, but it didn’t matter because it only had a five-year lease and definitely wouldn’t still be around a quarter of a century later, littering the skyline.
It was the end of the 90s and, as the Thatcher/Major doldrums whizzed out of view like the subplot of Sliding Doors, we maintained a Bridget Jones-like innocence and entrusted the future to guys like Blair, Peter Mandelson and Bill Clinton, who didn’t seem like (respectively) warmongers, abuse excusers or sex pests.
Earlier that evening I’d popped a CD into the stereo – The Writing’s on the Wall, by a young group called Destiny’s Child – and bish-bosh-bashed a snack by a new telly chef called Jamie Oliver. On the tube on my way there I’d read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and wondered if there would be a film adaptation.
The 90s had been absolutely fabulous and the 2000s were going to be amazing. It was the era of exotic “inventions” like cappuccino, pesto and hummus, and of going to parties in Soho lofts, hosted by a fashion editor/DJ/record label PR.
That night in particular, as we linked arms, sang the only five words of Auld Lang Syne that we knew and gasped at the fly-past by Concorde, BA’s most famous and surely enduring jet, we could smell the future and it smelt of J’Adore, by Dior.
I was dressed to kill, in a long tan leather coat, boot-cut black leather trousers, fake Timberland boots, a pointed-collar burgundy shirt, a stretchy plastic choker and a little bag from Kookai, managing to channel The Craft, Austin Powers, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all four members of All Saints, simultaneously.
After four hours of riverside anticipation and low-key sexual harassment in the thousands-strong crowd, Big Ben bonged, the fireworks went off and my friends and I cheered in the new year and wished strangers – an interesting mix of streetwise young locals, wholesome touristy families with kids and smiley international couples – all the best for the coming years’ peace and plenty. It took ages to escape the crush, but we eventually found ourselves in Chinatown. Like something from a feelgood romcom, we saw a brightly lit, delicious-smelling restaurant, its windows steamed up and its corner booth free. The lady who ran it gave us double portions, serving pak choi to my friend Elliot with the words, “Eat it, it’s Chinese Viagra. You’ll like it, big man.”
Replenished, we wandered the streets and found a fully functional Dodgems ride, its music bleeping, its bulbs flashing. And, standing right there, a group of tracksuited guys who were the perfect blend of hot, forward and nice. They asked if we wanted to team up, so we all played on the Dodgems until dawn.
It was great, and it was typical. Nights like that weren’t just possible then, they were common. And honestly, what’s wrong with it? Fireworks, a meal, fresh air and a funfair: forgo the champagne and it’s an eight-year-old’s perfect day.
When the night was over, the decade was done. “Dawn of a New Millennium” said the Saturday Guardian’s front page, with a photograph of a fragile-looking Earth. I took the tube home, hit the sofa and snoozed through my £25 DVD of The Matrix. What a bleak prognostication: a global population destroys the planet and spends all its time in an escapist online fantasy world powered by soul-sucking AI that regards humans as nothing more than fuel for the simulation. As if!
I’d been afraid that the millennium bug would reset all computer systems back to the year 1900 and everyone’s brains would explode. But no, Dale Winton was on TV announcing the Saturday night lottery numbers, as scheduled. Full of optimism, I opened my Muji notebook and started my diary entry: “01/01/00”.
