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The awfulness of the previous period of time

In my iTunes library, I have songs that mention the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, either looking back in anger or forward in excitement. “Goodbye, ’70s!” sneers Alison Moyet; “Heading for the ’90s, living in the ’80s,” notes one-hit wonders the Escape Club.

But what happened to the ’00s? Where were the songs from the late ’90s [...]

Happier times

I’ve been thinking a bit about memory. I recently had a conversation where I’d roughly described what I’d been doing for the last 10 years. And the next day I thought, well, that’s sort of how that decade went but it also didn’t go like that.

I could have retold the story of those years – [...]