Born in 1998

If you were born in 1998, Australia had its republic referendum campaign taking shape and its cricket team was possibly the greatest in history. Steve Waugh's Australians — Warne, McGrath, the Waughs, Gilchrist coming — were dominating world cricket with a completeness that was almost embarrassing, and the summer cricket was a reliable source of national pride. The Constitutional Convention in February voted narrowly for a republic with an elected president, setting up the referendum for the following year.

The economy was doing well, sheltered from the Asian financial crisis that was hammering its neighbours. Kylie Minogue was staging a comeback — "Some Kind of Bliss" starting the process — and would shortly reclaim her place as the most famous Australian in the world. *Babe: Pig in the City* arrived, darker than its predecessor.

Nick Cave continued his extraordinary run of form. The Olympic stadium at Homebush was taking shape. Two years away.

The Homebush Bay site was being transformed from a former abattoir into something extraordinary. On Saturday mornings, the children's sport — the soccer, the Auskick, the netball — occupied every park in every suburb, and the parents stood on the sideline with takeaway coffees and called encouragement. The flat white was now the essential Australian morning ritual.

Life was ordinary and good.