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ANNIVERSARY
We’re gonna celebrate
It’s a year to remember – but can you identify it? Emma Clegg goes back in time to when Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Prize, wedge flipflops were in, and Bath City were beaten by Yeovil Town
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an you guess the month and year? Michael Schumacher won the season ending the Japanese F1 Grand Prix for his record 11th victory of the year. England opened their Euro 2004 qualifying series with a 2–1 win over Slovakia in Bratislava, with David Beckham and Michael Owen scoring. Former cricketer Imran Khan was elected to the Pakistani Parliament after winning the seat of Mianwali-I. The European Union announced ten new members, including Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Cyprus. President George Bush argued for action against Iraq in a national address, outlining the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. North Korea admitted to developing nuclear arms in defiance of an international treaty. Former United States President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Here are some other clues. Givenchy for Homme cologne was launched along with Glow by JLo. Robbie Williams signed a new six-album deal with EMI for £80 million, the most lucrative contract ever signed by a UK musician. Britain was buffeted by 100mph winds in the worst gales since 1987, itself the most severe storm in 200 years. British Digital terrestrial television (DTT) service Freeview began transmitting in parts of the UK, and London Weekend Television closed forever. Closer to home Bath City’s worst fears of an opportunity missed came at the end of
October at Huish Park as they were beaten by three goals to one by Yeovil Town in their FA Cup 4th qualifying replay. Oh yes, and the people of Bath read the first issue of The Bath Magazine. It was October 2002. So take yourself back and imagine listening on your MP3 Player – the first iPod with Windows compatibility and a touch-sensitive wheel – to the strains of Complicated by Avril Lavigne, There by the Grace of God by Manic Street Preachers, or Dilemma by Nelly with Kelly Rowland (“No matter what I do, all I think about is you”), all top ten singles that month, with Dilemma becoming one of the bestselling singles of all time. Rewind 18 years as you peruse recently published books such as The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Sahara by Michael Palin and Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson. Visualise calling a friend with your Nokia 6610 – a top-selling mobile phone that year with downloadable polyphonic and monophonic ringtones and Xpress-on covers – as you take a sip of your Coca-Cola Vanilla, perhaps suggesting to them a shopping trip to find the latest velour tracksuit with matching zip hoody and some statement platform flipflops. Or maybe a visit to the cinema to see Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen with a (very fresh-faced) Martin Compston (Line of Duty as yet undreamed of) as a teenager with a troubled background; Red Dragon, with Anthony Hopkins reprising his role as Dr Hannibal Lecter; or Possession, the mystery drama based on AS Byatt’s novel starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart, the latter showing at the Bath Film Festival. On the tech front, the new Apple wonder was the iMac G4 with a thin flat panel display floating upon a cantilevered, fully
poseable metal arm and a hemispherical base, cramming a full computer, drives, and power supply under a 10.6-inch diameter dome. It even incorporated a small, quiet fan that sucked in cooling air from the bottom. A range of Bluetooth earpieces were launched from Jabra, Motorola, Nokia Plantronics and Sony Ericsson, allowing those who invested to walk around like secret service agents. PC games saw the arrival of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, with fantastic vistas and a depth of content still remembered as astounding, and the issue an absolute classic. The Sims Unleashed had also launched that year, allowing Sims families to introduce pets and an expanded neighbourhood with parks, pet stores and markets to explore. Woo-hoo! On TV, depending on your tastes, you may have been following Foyle’s War, Footballers’ Wives, The Forsyte Saga (with Damian Lewis, Gina McKee and Rupert Graves), or The Osbournes (with the Osbournes), which all launched that year. There was also a TV movie documentary in October charting the rise, fall and rise again of DJ Tony Blackburn who had been announced as the first-ever winner of I'm A Celebrity in the previous month. If you were young and on the fashion pulse with a crotch-skimming corset and low-slung jeans with no back pockets, you may not have seen Liza Goddard in the sellout tour of Alan Bennett’s Single Spies at Theatre Royal Bath – silk cargo pants and a pashmina scarf may have been more likely.
ABOVE: Dilemma and The Life of Pi LEFT, from left: the iMac G4 with its cantilevered metal arm; the Nokia 6610 mobile phone; and the 2002 MP3 Player, with its touch-sensitive wheel OPPOSITE RIGHT: Sweet Sixteen with Martin Compston; and The Forsyte Saga with Damian Lewis, Rupert Graves and Gina McKee OPPOSITE FAR RIGHT, from top: Christian Dior by John Galliano Spring Summer 2002 printed corset; Christian Dior by John Galliano jeans Autumn Winter 2002; Pointed Pump 2002, Gucci by Tom Ford 18 TheBATHMagazine
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OCTOber 2020
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issue 214
