Music is different it really is. It's true my musical taste has moved on, but my taste in a lot else is completely moored –- frozen -- at some point in the recent(ish) past. Specifically, I think it might have been in 1997.
I've been trying to work out exactly when it happened. I've pretty much confirmed it -- give or take, my tastes have frozen in time in the late 1990s. Specifically, I think it might have been in 1997.
What a year. I mean, really, I don't have a clue, what happened in 1997? I did a survey -- no one can remember anything significant about this year. I'm pretty sure this can't be true. I only remember it as I turned 29, I met a girl called Lauren and had my first Frappacino on a baking hot day in Seattle. This seemed significant, but I hadn't really worked out then, that it was not as significant as being 34.
I double checked. Something did happen in 1997. Tony Blair came to power with a woosh of spin, cheesy smiles and a brand new Labour Party. So new, in fact, that they decided to call it New Labour. I never worked out if that was the official name or just one the press made up. I guess it doesn't matter very much now.
I know at this stage I should feel some leftish urge to make a jibe about Tony being a huge dupe and warmonger who is plotting to put the people of the Middle East through a new round of misery, not to mention raining death and destruction down on the put-upon Iraqi people.
Except I've found that I too am an international warmonger and have nothing but derision for the numerous people I know who recently went on the peace/anti-war demo in London. I told them all this at a recent dinner party at my friend Leon's. This did not go down well. I can't believe so many of them have foolishly hung on to their fashionable leftwing views.
The evening marked a turning point. Well, a novelty at least. It was the first time I'd really been accused of selling out since I was a student (then it was just by members of the Socialist Worker's Party, which doesn't really count due to their general oppositionist outlook on life). My weak protestations, and my attempts at wit, about never having bought-in in the first place and that my warmongering views were simply keeping pace with my party of choice, et cetera, fell on deaf ears. Not to mention that I seemed to be the cause of a major sense of humour failure when I said my thinking had been heavily influenced by playing 'Desert Storm' on the PS2 ("fight the war as it happens!"). It was at this point that I realised that "but it was meant to be ironic" is no longer a justifiable defence. It's true irony is all used up.
It didn't help that people were present who were able to list my previous political crimes like a rap sheet of hundreds of demonstrations, which included marching on several Gulf War I outings with an ex-girlfriend and her cute dog (I can't believe I ever went on a march with a dog!).
Anyway, I know it was 1997 as I did a brand audit. A Gordon MacMillan brand index. That makes it sound a little grand. What I did was check what was in my cupboards, check what I'd bought online recently at Tesco and jog my memory and wrote down just about everything in the kitchen on a very long list. It was pretty short and it was very low on product innovation.
I won't bore you by going into colossal amounts of detail, but suffice to say all the evidence was there to indicate that I'm a complete black hole when it comes to certain product areas in my life. It's true I have all the signs.
The research all points to 35 being the cut-off. I seem to have struck out way too early in a number of areas. From cereal through to cleaning products, there's been no change in years. Apart from pizza, which seems to have been my only ongoing innovation. I've actively tried all kinds and all varieties... even the ones you can make yourself, which I will do occasionally as it sort of counts as cooking. Besides, Sainsbury's don't sell a broccoli and rocket pizza.
The pizza front is a definite improvement on life in 1997. During that period, I was completely wedded to the idea of home delivery. I just never tired of it. My former flatmate Johnny never stopped making fun of the fact that I actually put Sorento's Pizza on our BT Friends & Family list, but failed to put any of my family on it. Guilty as charged.
Actually, talking of Johnny, there has been some quite significant news. I realise I'm awash with significance of late, but this is of considerably more importance than my screwdriver revelation or Susan's tomato plants. Actually, while I'm here there's a latecomer to this crowd. Ellie said that the same thing happened to her (except she's only 30, so doesn't really count) and it was a vacuum cleaner. In particular, she got very excited about the Swiffer Wet Jet, but I think we'd all get pretty excited one way or another about that.
Anyway, Johnny had a sort of demographic blow-up, but more of that next week. BTW, I wanted to say that I bought both the Beck and the Supergrass albums, neither of which are compliations. I just feel the need to say this.
The Demographic Shift is a new regular column on Brand Republic as Gordon MacMillan charts his own demographic timebomb.