Born on 1 January 1998

Back in 1998, life felt like it was moving at a gentler clip, even if we were all convinced the fast-approaching millennium was going to blow our fuses. If you stepped into a pub like this back then, you’d be dodging a thick cloud of Silk Cut smoke and likely ordering a pint of Boddingtons or a neon-blue MD 20/20 if you were feeling brave. It was the year France 98 broke our hearts, yet we spent the whole summer bouncing around to "Three Lions '98" anyway, convinced it was still coming home.

The weather was a bit of a wash-out honestly, but we didn't care because we were glued to the telly watching the very first series of *Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?* or catching *The Royle Family*. On the high street, kids were obsessed with Furbies and desperate to keep their Tamagotchis alive, while at the cinema, everyone was weeping over *Titanic* or losing their minds over the special effects in *Godzilla*.

We were all humming "Believe" by Cher, even if we claimed to be into Britpop, and there was this strange novelty in the air as we started using the phrase "the world wide web" while waiting ten minutes for a single photo to load on a chunky desktop. It was a simpler, sunnier sort of time, before the world got quite so loud.