THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

-
In 1996 (just for the hell of it) it was Gina G singing 'Ooh Aah, Just a Little Bit', it was Euro '96, it was Oasis, it was Knebworth, it was Kevin Keegan shouting with petulance but also visceral, wild-eyed ardour at Alex Ferguson for being so cynical and mean-spirited, it was the end of the IRA ceasefire, it was Mission Impossible I, it was the International Year For the Eradication of Poverty, it was the Dunblane massacre, it was Alan Shearer, it was lime-green, it was big-platforms on trainers, it was bright orange, it was the Union Jack looking OK for a fleeting moment, it was the Nintendo 64, it was Bill Clinton signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, it was Tony Blair smiling a Clintonian rather than a Bushian smile that was nevertheless both hopeful and sinister, it was the death of Tupac, it was the film 'Independence Day', it was the publication of Chuck Palanuik's book 'Fight Club', it was David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest', it was Our Friends in the North summing up the spirit of the age, it was Geri Halliwell, it was Dodgy singing 'Good Enough', it was the birth of Dolly the Sheep.

In 2007 it was Kylie coming back and singing '2 Hearts' in a dark, gothically decadent dress, it was Gordon Brown coming to power and saying very little, it was the BBC adaptation of Dickens's 'Oliver Twist', it was Amy Winehouse's drugs, it was the the intense, monochromatic force of the film 'Control', it was Britney Spears losing control with the world watching, it was 'immigration is getting out of control', it was George Bush and Tony Blair in decline, it was Don DeLillo's 'Falling Man', it was The Klaxons, it was Led Zeppelin reforming, it was black, it was 'everything is going wrong / but we're so happy', it was Lily Allen appearing in her (black) lingerie for GQ magazine, it was gold, it was ketamine, it was spidery shadowy lettering, it was Afghanistan, it was Iraq, it was Iran, it was David Lynch's 'Inland Empire', it was the BBC adaptation of 'Cranford', it was Calvin Harris singing that he had love and hugs for people, but only if they were born in the penultimate decade of the twentieth century, it was ostentatious jewellery, it was buckets and buckets of rain, it was Channel 4's T4 Unsigned bands competition, it was Northern Rock imploding, it was the total lunar eclipse in March, it was Nicolas Sarkozy, it was a sad, ineffable absence right in the middle of things with two syllables that said Maddy until nobody knew what it meant anymore.