On New Year's Eve 1999 Tony Blair wished peace as the London Eye made its inaugural, slow rotation on the Thames. The narrator and friends experienced late-90s optimism, enjoying Destiny's Child, TV chefs, and Harry Potter while anticipating the 2000s. The scene featured Soho loft parties, new food trends like cappuccino, pesto and hummus, and a Concorde fly-past scented by J'Adore. Fashion blended leather coats, boot-cut trousers, chokers and designer bags, channeling film and TV influences. The mood combined youthful innocence, sensory-rich celebration, and confidence in public figures at the millennium cusp.
"We wish you peace, said Tony Blair as the clock struck 8pm. It was New Year's Eve 1999, a Friday night, and I was on the banks of the Thames. Britain's fresh-faced prime minister only two years into the job was giving a gimmick called The British Airways London Eye its first spin. The Eye was physically unremarkable and harrowingly slow, but it didn't matter because it only had a five-year lease."
"Earlier that evening I'd popped a CD into the stereo The Writing's on the Wall, by a young group called Destiny's Child and bish-bosh-bashed a snack by a new telly chef called Jamie Oliver. On the tube on my way there I'd read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and wondered if there would be a film adaptation. The 90s had been absolutely fabulous and the 2000s were going to be amazing."
Read at www.theguardian.com
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