Born on 1 January 2007

If you were born in 2007, you missed a year that felt like the very last gasp of the old world before everything went digital and demanding. Back then, we weren’t glued to iPhones; we were sliding open our Sony Ericssons to send a grainy picture via Bluetooth or frantically tapping out T9 texts on a Motorola Razr. It was the year of the indoor smoking ban—suddenly the pubs smelled like stale beer and carpet instead of Marlboros—and we’d huddle outside in the drizzle just to have a gossip.

I remember "Umbrella" by Rihanna being absolutely everywhere, blaring out of every Vauxhall Corsa, while we all sat gripped by the final *Harry Potter* book, desperate to avoid spoilers on the early days of Facebook. The summer was a literal washout with those terrible floods, but we cheered ourselves up with *Gavin & Stacey* and watched the Spice Girls announce their big reunion. We were eating Cadbury’s Wispa bars again because they'd finally brought them back, and if you went to the cinema, you were likely seeing *Transformers* or sobbing through *Atonement*.

It was a simpler, slower time, filled with the glow of the Nintendo Wii and the sound of Mika on the radio.