Born on 1 January 2001

Back in 2001, life had a specific sort of hum to it, a final lingering stretch of the analogue world before everything went truly digital. If you stepped into a pub back then, you’d likely be dodging a cloud of Benson & Hedges smoke while Shaggy’s "It Wasn’t Me" played on the jukebox for the tenth time that hour. It was the year we all huddled around the box to watch the very first *Pop Idol*, arguing over whether Will or Gareth had the better pipes, or losing ourselves in the surreal anarchy of *The Big Breakfast* before Johnny Vaughan called it a day.

The weather that spring was miserable—I remember the heartbreak of the Foot and Mouth crisis keeping us out of the countryside—but we made up for it at the cinema, queuing around the block for the very first *Harry Potter* or *The Lord of the Rings*. Kids were obsessed with Beyblades and swapping Bionicles, while the rest of us were still figuring out how to send a picture message on a Nokia 3310. It was a year of Smirnoff Ice, chunky highlights, and the strange, quiet magic of a Sunday evening spent waiting for the Top 40 countdown on Radio 1.