On my bingo card for 2026? Expect the unexpected again

"Let's all meet up in the year 2000, won't it be strange when we're all fully grown?" The first time I heard "Disco 2000" by Pulp was in the winter of 1995, when it was first released.

- SARFRAZ MANZOOR

The song’s theme of anticipatory future nostalgia - the idea of the future as a place where youthful dreams might come true – felt entirely bewitching. It was a moment in my life, and in the country, when the future felt tantalisingly rich with possibility.

The long winter of Conservative rule appeared to be ending, with the Labour Party under a dynamic, youthful leader called Tony Blair enjoying double-digit leads in the polls. In the United States, Bill Clinton was in the White House, on his way to being reelected the following year.

I was 24 and restless to see what the future might hold; I used to look forward to the surprises the new year might bring. It did not seem fanciful to think those surprises might be pleasant.

Cut to the present day, and the prospect of what 2026 might bring already makes me anxious. One of the curses of being middle-aged is that you remember what it was like to live in uninteresting times - and that memory makes the head-spinning weirdness of our present moment harder to process.