Becky Barnicoat
guardian.co.uk,
Friday 16 October 2009
Barack and Michelle Obama at an inauguration ball. Was the end of the Bush presidency one of the decade's highlights? Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty
It could be a decade you cherished, or a decade you loathed - and for so many different reasons. The irritatingly named 'noughties' are finally drawing to a close and, as we argue in a special issue of Weekend magazine tomorrow (Saturday 17 October 2009), the world will never be the same again.
There were so many lows. Eight of the last 10 years were presided over by George Bush, officially the most unpopular and grammatically challenged US leader of all time. The catchphrase 'war on terror' was hurled at us from all directions, at first making us frightened for our own safety and then for the safety of the millions of people living on the front line in the Middle East.
Then to cap it off, it turned out that a frenzied 10-year spending spree had consequences. At the end of 2008 our bad debt, out-of-control loans and gluttonous banking culture left the world's economies quivering on the floor in a desiccated heap.
The bad times didn't end there. For Michael Jackson fans the sky fell in when the man that changed the face of pop, in varied and sometimes scary ways, popped his patent clogs in June 2009.
And what about Jade Goody? For a while she was the ultimate noughties icon: an underprivileged Essex girl made good against the odds; a beneficiary of our new democracy - reality TV. But then we decided she was stupid, annoying and possibly racist, so we lambasted her … until we found out she'd developed cervical cancer, at which point she was briefly reinstated in to the church of national treasures before she died.
There were more than a few shameful and distressing moments, but let's not forget the highs. Ten years ago there was no Tate Modern, Jamie Oliver had just entered our lives as the Naked Chef, and we were all rethinking our frumpy 90s style under the guidance of Trinny and Susannah.
In 2000, it was genuinely exciting when an email popped into your Hotmail account from a friend abroad. Now we can talk face to face through our computers any time we like.
And do you remember when listening to any song in the world whenever you wanted to FOR FREE seemed like an impossible dream? When the prospect of anybody other than scientists and Blue Peter presenters talking about climate change was unlikely? When your children came home from school with tummy aches from too many turkey twizzlers and you thought: will no one ever learn? We've learned a hell of a lot.
In pictures: 10 great images of the noughties
It always felt unlikely that we could spend so much money and get away with it... and we didn't. In 2008, the world's economies came crashing to their knees in tears. Our eyes were opened to some almost demonic corruption on Wall Street - the worst perpetrator of all being NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff. His arrest and imprisonment offered a moment of gleeful schadenfreude in a gloomy couple of years
Photograph: Jason B Nicholas/Atlas Press/eyevine
The world looked on in horror as the 'Black Saturday bush fires' raged across South-Western Australia in 2009, destroying the town of Kinglake. 173 people were killed. The fires were the latest in a long line of environmental disasters caused or made worse by climate change
Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters
In 2004 Dr Who was a throwback to slightly dorky, old-school BBC drama. In 2005 it was a revelation starring first Christopher Ecclestone and then David Tennant as the Doctor reconstructed for a knowing noughties audience
Photograph: Rex Features
The UK's reality princess was Jade Goody, who shot to fame and fortune on Big Brother in 2002; looked like losing it all after a racism row on the celebrity version of the show; received her cancer diagnosis live on the Indian version of it- on which she was appearing to atone for the racism row- and had her last weeks and funeral chronicled in a dedicated reality show. She was 27.
Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features
Lance Armstrong rides to his second of seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France on 21 July 2000 - just three and a half years after he had beaten stage three testicular cancer
Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP
Isabelle Dinoire, whose face was horrendously mauled by a dog, received the first successful partial face transplant in France in 2007. Just one of a decade's worth of scientific breakthroughs and discoveries
Photograph: Reuters
After 9/11 airports became an unexpected frontline in the war on terror. Bottles of water were banned from flights, make-up was transferred to clear plastic bags and queues stretched on forever
Photograph: Matt Rourke
Before Trinny and Susannah marched in to our lives in 2001 and snapped the greying elastic on our knickers, we lived in an age of innocence. Hemlines were unflattering, jeans accentuated our muffin tops and our socks didn't match. How we learned the error of our ways...
Photograph: ITV
The course of global politics was altered irrevocably when terrorists flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. Just over two years later we were at war with Iraq
Photograph: Carmen Taylor/AP
Children observe a total solar eclipse with Google goggles in Beijing, China. In 2002, Google was just an idea. Four years later, it had gone from earning nothing to earning $20bn a year. Today 70% of all searches online are 'Googles'
Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
No comments:
Post a Comment