Posted 2:56 PM by Paul
Still No Hovercars

Nearly 2004. An impossibly futuristic date. I worked on the Dome, Britain's ill fated millennium project. Way back in those optimistic 90s when Tony Blair was almost universally trusted, the Year 2000 seemed like an impossible future. The new millennium. Now it seems anachronistic. A bit like a 1950s Sci-Fi DC Comic but not as much fun.

How was the year for me?

My mother died. Despite the tears and the heartache we were very lucky. She survived at least 4 years longer than was expected and we were all with her when she slipped away on a bright sunny day in September aged 81.

The kids are healthy and happy.

Heather and I are coming up to our 15th anniversary and still very much in love. My love for her has grown over the years. I still look at her and wonder why she marrried a man nearly 10 years older than her aged 23 when she could have waited around for someone better.

Blair signed up for a a war made in the White House and a nation began to tire of his patronising sermons and effortless sophistry. Now we have a civil war, an illegal occupation and a base for Islamic extremists in a country where they were hitherto excluded.

I played my pathetically small part in the anti-War movement by going on two huge anti-war demonstrations. Participation in the last one during Bush's visit got me in to a shouting match with an old friend. He left the restaurant before finishing his supper, annoyed with me and unable to share the same table. I stayed and tried to work out why it had come to this.

We visited the USA and Canada and were driving out of Niagara when the power outages blacked out the Eastern Seaboard and Ontario. I fell in love with New York again. The first time I went in 1983 it felt so modern. Now it seems like part of America's heritage, a place of tradition rather than innovation. It is still the greatest place I have ever been to.

Concorde was retired from service. Cutting edge technology is now employed in blowing people up, not in whisking them between continents at twice the speed of sound

My sister had happiness cruelly snatched from her when her boyfriend died of a rare kidney disease just before they were due to wed.

I was offered, and accepted a permanent contract at work - so now my salary is not only generous but reliable.

Tomorrow we are going to to see Santa Versus in the Snowman in 3-D at the Imax cinema at Waterloo followed by supper at a new American diner that has opened up in the Savoy. We will all see the New Year in at home. I never forget how lucky we are.

My hopes and plans for next year are limited.

Stay happy
Stay healthy
Stay in employment
Teach the kids guitar
Teach Emily to swim
Have a long family holiday in France
Celebrate my 29th consecutive fiesta in Pamplona
Improve my Spanish

Nearly 2004 and still no police in hovercars and air hostesses in shiney metallic jump suits. What ever happened to THE FUTURE?