Born on 1 January 2000

Back in 2000, there was this strange, collective exhale of relief that the Millennium Bug hadn’t actually switched off the National Grid or sent our kettles into meltdown. We all felt a bit invincible, honestly. You couldn’t walk past a pub without hearing the thumping beat of "Groovejet" by Spiller or the Cheeky Girls—well, maybe not them yet, but certainly S Club 7.

I remember everyone was obsessed with *Big Brother*; it was the very first series, and we were all genuinely hooked on the mundane drama of Nasty Nick and his smuggled notes. If you weren’t glued to the telly, you were probably trying to keep a Tamagotchi alive or begging your mum for a Nokia 3310 just so you could play Snake under the desk at school. The weather that autumn was absolutely biblical—proper floods that stayed in the news for weeks—but we’d just retreat inside to watch *Gladiator* on VHS or eat a bowl of Turkey Twizzlers before Jamie Oliver made them public enemy number one.

It was a time of WKD Blues, the Dome actually opening its doors, and a feeling that, for better or worse, the future had finally shown up at our doorstep.