2001: A PS Odyssey

[SiHart]

In one of those weird moments you get every so often I suddenly realised this evening that it's 10 years since it was 2001. My first thought was "Oh that's obvious Simon, don't be so silly." and then I got thinking about how that doesn't actually seem possible- 2001 was yesterday, or so it seems.

But it's not- that was 10 years ago!

So in a sort of lookback thingy, lets all go back to 2001... who were you and what were you doing? Where were you and what do you remember from 2001.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It indeed is odd. Does seem like just yesterday - this kind of ages it though,
* we'd pretty much all be on dial up
* PS2 had just been released
* a portable CD player was the "IT" thing to have
* we still had Our Price
* no one knew what an iPhone/iPod/iPad was
* everyone was getting excited about Windows XP - but most of us were still on Windows 95
* the computer we surfed the internet on was as powerful and the smartphone we now carry aroun
* Doctor Who was dead and buried and definitely not coming back
* terrorism couldn't happen to America

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It's hard to do this justice really on a personal level. It seems like only yesterday until you start working out the details and all the things that have changed since.

Yes it only seems yesterday, but then you think all the things you've learned, achieved and sometimes let go in those 10 years, and you seemed divorced by this immense gulf from the you that's now and the you that's then.

[Anthony Williams]

Ten years ago:

I was 13 years old.

I'd just sat Common Entrance to go from my school's Junior School into the Senior School, which I passed, and I started in the Senior School in the September. Only a few days into the new term, we were shocked with the 9/11 atrocities. I have strong memories of walking back from the art block to my classroom for the end of the day, and a boy called Alex Dizer came up to me and told me that someone had flown a plane into the World Trade Center in New York, and that there'd be a war. I simply remarked "bullshit" and walked off. How shocked was I when I got back to the classroom, and they'd put the news on the tv. A classmate later came in, took one look at the tv and remarked "cool movie!" - how shocked was he when he was told that this was actually happening!

I had a weight problem. I was technically over-weight, but the teasing that I endured up to 2001 would cause me significant problems for years to come. By the age of 15, I was technically anorexic, and would remain so until I was 18. Ever since, I've had problems controlling my weight, which yo-yos up and down.

I had got back into Doctor Who in the summer of 2000. Soon after, I started collecting the DVDs, as they came out. By 2001, I was beginning to get into Big Finish, particularly when they started releasing the first batch of audios with Paul McGann. I also dipped into the books. To be honest, I was probably more of a fan then than I am now!

I'd be getting into online fandom at the end of 2001, and setting up PS in April 2002.

Gallifrey was destroyed. For the first time. In The Ancestor Cell.

I was just beginning to get into heavy metal - or what I thought was heavy metal. The only band I listened to back then that I still listen to now is Metallica. Other favourites included Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and S Club 7 (seriously!)

My father and I were still on talking terms (admittedly, we were still on talking terms up until April last year, but that doesn't make this statement any less valid!)

Barely any of us were aware of Russell T. Davies, beyond one New Adventure and QAF. How he'd come to be a central figure in our lives only 2 years later, when the announcement was made!

If you'd told me that in 10 years' time, I'd have two degrees to my name and would be living in America, married to a gorgeous girl, I'd have said that you were mad!

10 years ago, I was entering teenage years. I look back now, and think that it was the beginning of an absolutely ludicrous time of my life. Those years were the years that made me who I am today. Would I change any of them? No!

[Dino]

To the tune of The Blue Danube

2001 der dim. Der der.
And I had been dumped.
Der dim. Der der.
early 20's hum. Der dim. Der Der
Was not in a job or studying.

That's about enough of it as I could stand.
There was a car crash. I was in a taxi but uninjured. About March. Saved by my seatbeat. I was in the passenger side of a taxi being driven.
I remember thinking "Have we crashed into a car?" twice. The driver... why didn't I come to provide evidence to the whiplashed woman in the other car at the time. I refused treatment from the 3 ambulances.
Walked away from the compensation and despite getting a couple of phone calls. I even got a taxi the next day from the very same taxi driver who encouraged me to play up the injuries to get compo... and I never. I walked away from getting money! This was last straw so she broke up with me and went back to Scotland. The hardest lesson is you can let her read your diaries, eh?

I know... I know...

The break up caused such heartbreak that I missed a Job Seekers agreement.
Relationship with other few friends have knock on effect except for my oldest friend who is tucked away studying in London.
So out of revenge New Deal Adviser puts me in basic skills group. As I came to what had ahappened with basic numeracy and literacy. Tend to sit there babbling on about the bass guitar I had bought with her money.

I was in basic skills group on 9/11. The radio was confiscated. I also had a counselling session.
I also remember when forces were launched in Afgahnistan, it was on my birthday.

I intend to listen to Super Furry Animals "Rings Around The World", Manic Street Preachers "Know Your Enemy" and "Discovery" by Daft Punk.

If you have one or more of these albums, even if you didn't buy them in 2001, please give them a play over a rainy day!

EDIT: I also used to have a Q best of 2001 CD but that bought on seriously bad thoughts I had to get rid of it a few years later!

[Alex]

It's a game of two halves for me, really - 2001 started off pretty well for me, I met a girl who I ended up going out with for about three months, and whilst that's not that long admittedly, the first two and a half months were a lot of fun (if this was the Temple I'd go in to further detail, but it's not, so I shan't! ). I then worked on the first Celebrity Big Brother, and then the main second series, and had a fantastic time on both.

Alas media work's all a bit horribly unpredictable, as just when I really thought my career was taking off, I found myself struggling to get work, and ended up handing out leaflets in a petrol station for a week shortly after, before temping for Esure (which was hideously badly run) and then a major insurance company where the work was incredibly dull. I got pretty down during this period, thinking I'd wasted my three years working for my degree, and that all my employment experience counted for nothing.

Still, on the bright side 2002 would turn out to be a much better year - or at least far more consistent, though I didn't know that at the time of course...

[SiHart]

It was a transitional, thoughtful and by turns upsetting and uplifting year.

I started off in a bad place personally. I wasn't myself. I'd become someone I didn't like much and I didn't really know how to turn it around. In the end someone else found the way to make me see there was a different way to the path I was choosing and through March and April that year I just kind of stopped for a bit. And thought. And was quiet. It hurt a lot and I asked myself a lot of questions and worked through a whole lot of things and when i was ready to face the world again i was all the better for it. I was a nicer, better behaved and far more thoughtful person than i had been for quiet some time.

Life got better as the year went on. My good friend Mark moved into our shared house and we had a lot of good times (a bit of misery over the summer, but I won't dwell on that) and a huge amount of laughs. I met a lovely guy who wasn't quite right for me but we had a couple of intense dates together including a night spent in Hyde Park after clubbing in London... but I still had a talent for finding people who weren't necessarily as stable as they should have been (he said, very politely).

Anyway, after me and this guy made the decision that it wasn't working very well, I was at a bit of low ebb and I made the decision that really turned my life around. I joined OG. Within a fortnight I'd met Si Hunt and Richard Beeby among others and life was suddenly wonderfully exciting, busy and fun. Best decision I ever made was crashing their meet up!

Elsewhere my nephew was born, was incredibly sick for the first few months of his life and spent much time at Great Ormond Street, but somehow he came through it all to be a big part of my life ever since. Worrying and horrible times for us as a family, but we supported each other and survived.

And the music was great!

[Darren]

I always feel a little down when I think back a decade as, in retrospect, I don't think I have done with my life everything I should have. Back then I was in my mid twenties and probably wasted opportunities and missed life experiences, sort of drifting whilst everybody got on, moved on and achieved.
At the time I was, I would say, content as it didn't really occur to me what I may be missing out on.
In general, I was working where I am now albeit in a different department, enjoying theatre and starting to get into photography. I was, I think, already posting on PS and using TARDISite ( I miss Pip) and "virtually" meeting some really nice people.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I wasn't myself.

It's kind of funny isn't it? I think we all wish we could go back 10 years, but I don't think any of us would like to be the same person we were 10 years ago, and in fact the very idea is somewhat repulsive (to me at least).

[Rob McCow]

Wow - 2001 is not getting a high score, is it?

Can anyone follow up their life story in that year with 'and then the internet came along and saved/changed my life'?

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I dunno - 2001 was the building blocks of a lot of change for me I know. Something pretty unpleasant happened to me back in 1980, and it suddenly seemed to start repeating itself a lot, leading to me getting councelling for what I was told was post-traumatic stress. Being cut loose of that kind of baggage after 20 years was a great relief, though not always fun.

It's kind of funny, but with that came a lot of change of beliefs. I was on a kind of crossroads I guess. I was reading lots about Paganism, as I was feeling my world beliefs weren't quite right - it was a read eye opening time, and I needed to explore a different way of looking at the world. I now consider myself Pagan, but overall I try and be very quiet about my beliefs, cos they're my beliefs and I don't really need anyone else to share them.

Oh that and as councelling showed me, my beliefs reflect the frame of reference for me from my knowledge, experience and life, and they don't really fit with other people.

[Jeff]

In 2001 I was 25, single with no kids, and newly engaged to be married. In late May/early June I moved out of my apartment and into the house that we are currently living in (and getting ready to move out of again). I was at the same company as now, but in a different job in the next building over. I had been on the internet since 1997, and had high speed cable internet there, but moving to the country I had to give that up for dial up, because I was too far away from the central office for DSL... eventually equipment would increase the maximum distance, but I didn't get high speed DSL until 2007.

It would be another year before I discovered ebay, and had the idea occur to me to look and see if there were DVD's or anything for that old show I used to love and watch, Doctor Who. Indeed there was, and there was a forum at the BBC website which would lead me to here... but as I said, that was 2002.