Is there a word for the sense of vertigo we sometimes feel about the passage of time? The internet suggests “chronophobia”. That seems in danger of medicalising a response that is perfectly natural, even if occasionally unsettling. One delivery system for these temporal shocks is the anniversary, and 2017 promises to be a bumper year.
Twenty years ago, 1997 really did seem to provide one of those bold historical punctuation marks. For me, personally, it was the year I left Yorkshire for London and met my future wife. For the rest of us it meant the New Labour landslide and Cool Britannia.
