In just over two years time we will witness the dawning of a new millennium. People are crapping themselves at the thought, anticipating Armageddon, melting ice-caps, alien invasion and expensive cigarettes. In truth, all that is likely to happen is we'll date cheques incorrectly for a while, realise our mistake and say 'Duh, silly me, I keep thinking it's 1999.' Except...
except... the techno-wizards who made this webpage possible, the experts who gave us the micro-chip, the boffins who program spacecraft to navigate Mars - these same clever, clever people forgot to design computers that register dates above 1999. Foresight to these fools means wearing glasses. So, come 2000AD, thousands of computer-driven systems around the world will be out of synch. Who knows where this will lead? No-one, of course, although the most conservative estimates reckon that 1% of the world's businesses will become bankrupt as a result. And 1% is apparently more than enough to precipitate a major world-wide recession. So that's something to look forward to then.
But enough of these apocalyptic predictions. It is time to cock a wry glance at past events, or, if you prefer, glance wryly at our cocks. We have carefully, yet carelessly and randomly, selected highlights from 1997. We chose this method to reflect the paradoxical nature of human existence within a capitalist post-modern media dominated global society. Actually, we just made that up. Anyway, the process is simple: click on the desired month/week below to glimpse an elegant snapshot of a bygone time. Readers should be warned that these headlines tend to be Anglo-centric and very tasteless. We don't care. After all, we can't all be yanks and computers don't have tongues. Do they?
The year 1997 all the stories month by month: Jan 1997 Feb 1997 Mar 1997 Apr 1997 May 1997 Jun 1997 Jul 1997 Aug 1997 Sep 1997 Oct 1997 Nov 1997 Dec 1997
I DIDN'T WANT TO READ ABOUT LAST YEAR! I wanted 1998's news, but I'm a fool.
THAT'S YOUR LOT. you've had your beer, you've had your fun, now piss off home.