What you just missed

'90s nostalgia is everywhere. But the years that truly matter sit just out of reach

“You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics” observed the economist Robert Solow in 1987. Solow was alluding to the fact that, despite widespread investment in computers and digital technology, labour productivity in the mid-to-late 20th century remained less than yeasty.

I wonder whether a similar phenomenon is underway with culture, and specifically the 1990s. I mean, you see it everywhere, from the Oasis reunion tour to the glut of TV reboots. Even Arsenal are able to defend set pieces again. Everywhere, that is, except in geopolitics, where the United States can’t even any longer guarantee freedom of navigation.

Partly, this 1990s nostalgia follows a well-trodden path. Practically speaking, those who remember the period now hold positions of power across the arts, and are therefore in position to recommission their childhood favourites. Think of it as a sort of 30-year rule but for culture, rather than the release of public documents.

I mean, this is a civilisation that had no qualms about doing 1970s nostalgia, what with Boogie Nights (1997), That ‘70s Show (1998), Life on Mars (2006) and the mercifully brief revival of flared jeans. Despite the fact that the decade was not exactly a triumph for the West. No doubt in 30 years’ time, there will be earnest attempts to dredge up the 2020s.

I’m as guilty of 1990s revivalism as the next middle-aged millennial. I’ll watch Friends while playing Nintendo 64 and munching on lunchable-style snacks. But there’s an era I’m even more obsessed with — what I can best describe as the period just before I knew what the hell was going on. That interstitial period from just after time began (the year of my birth) but before my first proper cultural memories.

At that age, it all happens so quickly, doesn’t it? I have no memory of Euro ‘96 but obsessively watched every match from World Cup ‘98. Until the age of eight, I cared little for any music other than The Lion King soundtrack, and then all of a sudden Top of the Pops became must-see Friday night viewing. And it is that in-between period I find myself repeatedly drawn to. A sort of no-man’s land, where many of the characters in sport, politics and culture are recognisable but somehow warped out of shape.

It’s up for grabs now!

Take Michael Thomas. I know full well that he scored the championship-clinching, last-minute, Sergio-Agüero-could-never goal for Arsenal at Anfield in 1989 — but that’s history. To see VHS-quality footage of Thomas later playing in the same Liverpool side as Michael Owen is downright weird. As if Stanley Matthews showed up at Tony Pulis’s Stoke to play outside right.

Or take politics. Michael Heseltine is to me one of two people: the 1980s Tarzan figurine with flowing locks who walked out of the cabinet in 1986 over the Westland affair, or the very model of a modern elder statesman unapologetically campaigning for Remain. In other words, what the heck was he doing in 1996, slugging it out with John Prescott at the despatch box as deputy prime minister?