the rise of the rave scene, and the development of UK internet/multimedia art and cyberculture (not the dressing up daft to go to Gatecrasher etc – but how techies and artists worked together to build the first wave of websites and make music/videos)

In hindsight – the late 90s weren’t too bad a time TBH

Even though Blair was on the scene by then he was more like an overbearing but ineffectual headteacher than an effective control freak, the planned surveillance society wasn’t really being set up in earnest – whilst the govt and wider society seemed to turn a blind eye to a lot of stuff in the euphoria of “Cool Brittania” and the “dot-com boom” (crews could crack a new building every week and rave it – as well as have long-term squats and the cops just let you get on with it!) –

TBH I’m still amazed at what people got away with in those days.