As the decade turns, let's see what I was up to the last times that happened...
Wednesday 31st December 1969
Thursday 1st January 1970
No idea. I was only four, and not yet capable of keeping a diary.
Monday 31st December 1979
Get up after 10am, after the trauma of having to sing the Once in Royal David's City solo at last night's carol service. Simon Bates is already deep into Radio 1's day-long countdown of the Top 100 singles and albums of the decade. It gets hard to listen when Mum starts hoovering. Soup for lunch. Phone call from Ormskirk, confirming plans for my solo jaunt to Merseyside in two days time. TV includes the Blue Peter review of the year (with Simon, Tina and Chris), the small screen premiere of Murder On The Orient Express and Penelope Keith's 90 minute look back at the best BBC programmes of the 70s. By watching that I get to stay up until midnight. Unduly excited by the prospect of an extra leap second. Tuesday 1st January 1980
Straight up to bed after the delayed bongs. Get up after 10am again. Time for some New Year socialising with the family whose Dad died unexpectedly young, so no longer own the big house up the road. They've laid out a lot to eat and drink, and noticeably hoicked up the heating. Back home I finally manage to record Captain Beaky off the radio without missing the start. Settle down for the Royal Institution Christmas lectures - this year it's atomic chemistry. My godfather pops round, not for long, but long enough to pop several balloons. A brand new sitcom, Hi-De-Hi, starts at half past seven, sowing the seeds for several catchphrases to come. Tomorrow I'll be taking my first ride on the Mersey Ferry and being unimpressed by Birkenhead, so tonight I need to turn in early.
Sunday 31st December 1989
Start the last day of the Eighties by walking home from a night out playing Trivial Pursuit, listening to Dire Straits and grazing on nibbles. Get up at 10am, surprised to have beaten everybody else in the house, even my parents. Bring them hot drinks, and later get repaid with a bacon roll. The newspapers are packed with end of year reviews. My brother's friend from university is staying over and has spent the night in a sleeping bag on the sofa. I disappear back upstairs when they start watching American football. It should have been roast beef for dinner but we defrosted lamb by mistake. No problem, it's delicious. After a slice of chocolate cake I get to do the washing up, while my brother fires up the BBC Micro to play Chuckie Egg. Show off a bit by scoring 235860. It's Top 40 day, so hover over the record button on my radiocassette... to grab Deacon Blue and De La Soul. Band Aid 2 are still number 1. My brother and his friend head up to London by tube to see in the New Year in Trafalgar Square, but I decide against joining them in case I can't get back. My parents head up the road to see in the New Year with the beekeeping narrowboaters, but I decide against joining them because that's something people in their fifties do. Instead I get to stay home alone with a supply of cider, a bowl of nuts and ownership of the remote control. Flick repeatedly between Clive James, Cilla Black, three hours of 80s music videos and Sticky Moments with Julian Clary. My diary does not record which of the four I was watching at the crucial moment. Monday 1st January 1990
Following Auld Lang Syne, Clive James introduces surprise guest Kylie Minogue. Mum and Dad return at 1, having endured ITV's Scottish offering. Brother and friend return at 2, having walked from the next-but-one tube station (and having not actually heard Big Ben). Up at 9, because work starts again tomorrow and I have to be elsewhere by noon. There's just time for another bacon roll and some packing. Annoyingly there isn't time to watch the last ever episode of The Interceptor, which for some reason Channel 4 have held back until New Year's morning (and will never repeat). My luggage and I are driven 20 miles to the room I rent, where I stash Mum's frozen food parcels into my corner of the freezer. Thanks Dad. Spend the afternoon listening to yet another chart rundown, the official Top 80 of the 80s. Blue Monday somehow makes 13, while Don't You Want Me is at number 5. The evening is all Channel 4's, first Brookside, then three hours of archive treats in The A-Z of TV. "These 90s had better be good," I write.
Friday 31st December 1999
It's Millennium Eve, and life is not good. I've been single for two months and am somewhat directionless, afloat in a job I wouldn't otherwise have been doing in a county I wouldn't otherwise have been living in, attempting to make the best of it. Start the day with a bath, the newspaper and a trip to the postbox. On BBC1 David Dimbleby introduces 2000 Today, a day-long outside broadcast following the new millennium around the world starting in Kiribati. The New Zealand link is well dodgy. Ring parents, then lock up and head off on a Great London Excursion, the initial leg by car. The train up to town is very busy. My first point of call is Greenwich, obviously, where I can see lights dancing around the tips of the Dome. The park is locked, dammit. Then it's time to try out the Jubilee line extension for the first time (very nice), destination Green Park. Piccadilly is busy, Trafalgar Square is busier and Whitehall is stuffed. Manage to get to the London Eye for the big switch on, although the lasers aren't great, the fireworks are obscured and Concorde is merely a noise in the sky. Manage to get to the Tower of London in time to not see the Queen light the first beacon, because too many people are in the way. My ultimate destination is the Embankment opposite the Eye, but I only get as far as Temple which'll have to do. Stand on the kerb, watching the clock projected onto the LWT building count down from 100 minutes, as those around me chatter and put their brollies up. An entire millennium ends here. Saturday 1st January 2000
It is the midnight to end all midnights. Big Ben bongs, fireworks flash, '2000' appears on the building opposite and several groups around me open bottles of champagne. I wonder if that TV camera over there is filming us. The fireworks continue for quarter an hour, cloaking Westminster in smoke, but of the much-heralded River of Fire there is no sign. An Australian stranger is the only person to wish me a Happy New Year. Now all I have to do is beat the crush and get home. Climb a barrier near Blackfriars Bridge to escape into the general millennial melee, then strike out for Liverpool Street. It's still raining. Missed the half past one train so have to wait for the ten past two, but at least they're running some else I wouldn't be here. A delayed text message from Mum and Dad finally makes it through to my Nokia. The final drive home is easy, and I'm in bed by 4. Up at 9, impressively. Damn, the paper shop isn't delivering today. Sit down and watch four hours of 2000 Today, videoed while I was away, including the excruciating Blair/Queen Auld Lang Syne at the Dome. Then write a letter to the Ex, to accompany the soft furnishing bills I'll be sending, and get on the phone to confirm tomorrow's rebound shag. I'm determined that the 2000s are going to be an improvement on the 1990s (and, thankfully, so it proves).
Thursday 31st December 2009
My Mum's funeral has just been set for a fortnight's time. This means I don't have to cancel my New Year plans, which are considerably more elaborate than usual and involve a 300 mile flight. At 1pm I turn up at City Airport with a suitcase packed with fleecy layers, because the weather forecast is unseasonably chilly. I won't buy a £5 sandwich, thanks. Pile aboard the flight to Edinburgh, accompanied by BestMate and BestMate'sOtherHalf, and enjoy window seat views of Barking, pink fluffy clouds and snowy Lowland fields. It's already dusk up here. Jump into a taxi and ride through post-blizzard streets to our hotel. Nip out to Princes Street before they seal it off for this evening's shenanigans. Ahhh, it's been too long since I was last here. Hit Pizza Express on the Royal Mile for dinner, then go exploring alone. The North Bridge is slippery, Calton Hill is iced up, and a partial lunar eclipse is playing out above the castle. Back at the hotel we await BestMate'sAmericanFriends, who are late, then return with our Hogmanay tickets to Princes Street. Whose idea was it to sell ice cold beers, my hands are frozen. Some revellers are in kilts and fancy dress, but this year it's -6°C and woolly hats have triumphed. Because we're a group we stay put rather than wandering up and down, so get even colder and see very little. I think that's Madness playing on the big screen, but it's a long way away and there's no sound. Friday 1st January 2010
As the new decade begins I'm standing outside Marks and Spencer in Princes Street, watching fireworks erupt above the castle and texting Twitter. I'm also wishing I'd worn more than four layers and had brought gloves. The group of lads beside us burst into a very poor rendition of Auld Lang Syne. No official entertainment is audible. As the crowds head off to buy burgers and beers, BestMate'sAmericanFriends announce they want to go back to the hotel, which pisses me off because we've paid £10 for Hogmanay tickets and barely seen any of it. The hotel bar is at least warm. Our plan is to end the evening at a local pub, but it's at the bottom of an icy hill, negotiating which would have been tricky even if I was sober. I am not, so fail to finish my first bottle of Becks of the decade. Negotiating our way back up the slippery hill is much harder. Flake out in my hotel room somewhere around half past three. In the morning discover how difficult it is to find a cafe open on New Year's Day, and Arthur's Seat proves too snowy to attempt a climb, and an eight foot high kilted puppet walks past us up the Royal Mile, and a lot of the rest of our stay in Edinburgh is just filling time. It still beats standing opposite the London Eye though.
Tuesday 31st December 2019
Wednesday 1st January 2020
Dull in comparison.
