My top 13 Hits of the 90s

1. The Mavericks - Dance The Night Away 5-1998
2. Lou Bega - Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of...) 8-1999
3. The Waterboys - The Whole Of The Moon - 04-1991
4. Richard Marx - Hazard - 05-1992
5. Heart - All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You - 04-1990
6. Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness - 06-1992
7. The Foo Fighters - Everlong 8-1997
8. Alannah Myles - Black Velvet - 04-1990
9. Bryan Adams - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You - 06-1991
10. Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes - (I've Had) The Time Of My Life - 01-1991
11. Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting - All For Love 01-1994
12. Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing 9-1998
13. Seal - Kiss From A Rose 08-1994

And the nearly made its:
Berlin - Take My Breath Away - 10-1990
Jimmy Nail - Ain't No Doubt - 07-1992
R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts 04-1993
Aerosmith - Cryin' 11-1993
Bon Jovi - Always 09-1994
Paul Weller - You Do Something To Me 07-1995
The Rembrandts - I'll Be There For You 08-1995
The Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life 04-1996
Lighthouse Family - Ocean Drive 05-1996
No Doubt - Don't Speak 2-1997
Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much 5-1999

Sneak preview - Lost in Time - Part 3

Isaac Grows a Pair

Staring at his kindle to avoid making eye-contact, Isaac had never felt so alone. Of all the places to be stuck for two and half hours, an Austrian train wouldn’t have been his first choice – he didn’t share Sheldon’s love of them. But he did have many other things in common with The Big Bang Theory’s main character – especially when it came to the OCD tendencies. This entire journey had him well out of his comfort zone on so many levels, but he’d made a conscious decision to stop being so needy. Or as Kevin so quaintly suggested, to “put on his big-boy pants and man-up.” The ability to quote a cliché for every occasion was the guy’s superpower – or one of them. Despite the irritating class-clown persona, he had many redeeming features and was definitely someone Isaac would want in his corner in a crisis.

A raucous outburst from the end of the carriage provoked a pursing of his lips in what Kevin described as his lemon-sucky face – there he was again. Maybe it was simply the comic, visual nature of his epithets. Isaac grimaced at the noisy gaggle of youths, who he concluded were undoubtedly British and almost certainly drunk. Hunkering down, he tried not to raise his head above the parapet, nor his eyes from the kindle, despite the overt disapproval of those around him.
The older woman sitting opposite tutted. “They sound as though they are enjoying themselves a little too much. I suspect alcohol is involved.” Although aimed at no one in particular, her remark received supportive grunts from the other two men in their seating cluster.
He kept his eyes down as she glared in his direction. “I think this is common behaviour in young Englishmen.”
His mind screamed a protest that he’d never acted so thoughtlessly, even when he was young enough not to know any better. Resisting the weight of her expectant gaze, he recognised she’d spoken in heavily-accented English. The man next to her spoke in rapid German and she switched language as they chatted with the stilted to-and-fro of strangers bonding over a common foe.
Relieved at losing her attention, Isaac wondered briefly how she’d guessed he was English, remembering something Andrea had said about how he dressed like everyone’s idea of a perfect English gentleman. He sighed. How much easier would it have been if he’d got a seat on the same flight as Andrea, a seasoned traveller? Her plane was full, but it gave her the opportunity to spend a couple of days with her parents before he arrived. Although a bonus for her, it left him trying to tackle his first journey outside the UK alone. Big-boy pants indeed.

Feeling the woman’s gaze once more upon him, he reactivated the sleeping kindle, scrolled to the end of the chapter and resumed. His ability to shut out the background noise failed completely as one of the louts stumbled closer, still shouting to his mates, his language loud and offensive. As he reached their seats, the train swayed and he overbalanced, showering their table with lager from the can in his hand. Some of it landed on the woman opposite and she gasped.
“Sorry darlin.” He peered at her, gesturing with the can as he giggled. “Quite tasty for an old Kraut, ain’t ya?”
Isaac couldn’t believe the reaction of the two men who simultaneously found something fascinating in the scene outside the window. Something about the woman reminded him of Andrea, and he felt it his duty to protect her from such repulsive attention. Channelling the kind of courage his housemates displayed in their Dungeons and Dragons sessions, he adopted a cool tone. “You should apologise.”
“I already said sorry.” The lout’s gaze dismissed him as harmless. “Wasn’t my fault anyway. Blame the bleedin’ driver for taking the bend too fast.”
“You should apologise for your foul language and insulting attitude.”
“Oh yeah? Who’s gonna make me? You? Don’t make me laugh.” He towered over Isaac, puffing out his beer-belly.
Having had years of experience with bullies, Isaac knew his lack of height meant it would be a mistake to stand toe-to-toe in an attempt at physical intimidation. Instead he used a handy trick, raising his gaze to a point on the lad’s forehead and lowering his voice. “You have made a grave mistake. Martina is a black belt in many martial arts and could inflict serious damage. I strongly recommend you apologise.”
“Like I said, who’s gonna make me?” The nervous glance at his distant mates confirmed the crack in his bravado. “You an’ whose army?”

“My colleagues here are equally proficient so your little gang of inebriates would be completely outclassed.”
“Using big words don’t impress me much.”
Luckily the woman, whose name-tag identified as Martina, was up to the challenge, and had hardened her features as Isaac spoke. After a neutral glance at her aggressor, she rattled out a swift command to the other two, who both fixed the lad with menacing stares, resulting in complete deflation and a mumbled apology.
It would have to do. No point pushing it. “I suggest you mind your manners and run along.” Which he did.
Unfortunately, Isaac had lost all chance at anonymity as the woman introduced him to the other two who were, in fact, her colleagues. The three of them praised his courage in standing up to the scary thug who thankfully made no comment on his return journey.

Sneak preview - Lost in Time - Part 2

A note on the kitchen table explained why the door was locked – Naomi’s friend Stella was ill and she’d been called in to cover her lollipop duty at the school. The “Happy Birthday” surrounded by balloons tugged at his heart – this was always going to be the hard part, but her absence somehow made it easier.
Running up the two flights of stairs, he went straight into the structure at the back of the attic, depositing board and discs in the secret compartment. He switched on the radio, where Terry Wogan’s time check said he wasn't too far behind schedule. Then the guy stuffed it to him, playing Paul McCartney’s My Love – their very first “our tune.” As the former Beatle sang about going away and his heart staying, Eric paused, considering the enormity of his actions.
A creaking stair – the early warning system he refused to fix – alerted him to her proximity an instant before she called out. “I’m back, love. Would you like a cuppa?”
“No thanks. I’m in the middle of something.”
“Okay. Maybe later.”
The smothered disappointment in her tone said she had a surprise planned. Knowing her it would be cake related.
Who was he to deny her the pleasure it would bring?
A glance at the clock confirmed if he did anything now he’d miss the crucial time slot. If he’d worked it through, he’d have planned it better.
Then Wogan played his ace. As the staccato piano phrase announced Leo Sayer’s iconic story song with all its deep-seated connections, Eric came to his senses.
What kind of monster would leave the woman he loved without appreciating all the efforts she would have gone to for his birthday? How could he contemplate leaving her with such a dreadful memory? He’d have another chance in twelve hours – better to make them the best in her life.
He shouted after her. “On second thoughts, I am rather thirsty – I’ll be down in a sec.”

The clippety-clop of her footsteps supported his theory about her motivation, and the massive chocolate-covered confection on the kitchen table confirmed it.
“For me? You spoil me.”
“Because you deserve it. I don’t know why you’d be up there working today, but if it makes you happy, go for it.”
Thankfully, she turned to light the candles, because he had no more chance of disguising the wobble on his face than swimming on the moon. Stepping close, he put his arms round her waist, nuzzling the back of her neck in what she’d confessed was a knee-trembling move.
“Are you trying to set the house on fire?” She tutted.
“No, my love. Only you.”
“Be off with you. There’s a time and a place for monkey business.”
“Not even on my birthday?”
She paused mid-light, obviously thinking about it, and the flame singed her nail, making her drop the match. “Ow. I’m sorry, but Stella was going to cover my dinner lady duties, and now she’s ill … I can’t let them down.”
“Oh dear. Never mind.” A wicked glint sparkled in her eyes. “But that’s not for hours. You’d better blow the candles out first.” And he did.

21:08
After waving Naomi off to her evening aerobics class, Eric had hurried up to the attic with a mission to leave everything ship-shape and Bristol fashion. A shrill alarm alerted about time being of the essence. He scoffed. Whoever coined that phrase had no concept. The extra time had been well spent on a final check of the plans he’d left in place to ensure Naomi would be catered for. He sealed the envelope with her name on it, placing it on his forlorn-looking workbench, bereft of its normal clutter.
The hardest thing he’d ever written.
As he secured the door to his most prized invention, guilt washed over him at the thought of how she’d suffer for the next couple of years. Her intrinsic resourcefulness would rise to the task, and this was another necessary evil to divert the vengeful attentions of the real evil away from her situation. He cursed the day that monster had bought the thriving company with an offer the previous owner couldn’t resist.
He knew enough to guarantee they wouldn’t risk the bad press associated with evicting a grandmother from the crumbling wreck their family home had become. At least on paper. In reality … the second alarm curtailed his musings and, with a short prayer, he rolled the dice.

Sneak preview - Lost in Time

Necessary Evil

Eric: 9/9/99
He hated all the sneaking around, but given the circumstances, it was a necessary evil. Popping another disc into the drive, Eric repeated the command, thankful there were only a few left. One benefit of having the place to himself at such an ungodly hour was he could sabotage the project in secret. Thanks to a natty little virus, it would all happen without him even being there. His untimely vanishing act would raise suspicions, but that couldn’t be helped.
He’d infected both sets of backup disks so they would appear normal to a cursory glance. But the instant anyone used them in earnest the thing would activate, gobbling up the code and spitting out a jumble of nonsense. Irretrievable nonsense. He spared a thought for his deputy, Ron, who would have several nightmare weeks trying to piece it all together. But a couple of suspicious incidents suggested the guy wasn't totally blameless.
Having returned the backups to their secure drawers, he set about replacing the motherboard. An article about clever forensic techniques to reconstitute deleted files made this essential. He was on the floor, hidden by his desk, screwing in the cover of the tower unit when he heard someone open the office door and walk in. The unmistakable stench of Lynx deodorant identified it as Ron.
“Eric? Are you there?”
He froze as the guy wandered up and pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard.
“Typical. Bloody jobsworth would power down after he finished. Assuming he even turned up. If Harry thinks I’m gonna waste time double checking, he can think again. I need bacon and coffee.”
Suspicions confirmed.
Thankful he hadn’t parked in the main car park, Eric left it a while before emerging, and exited the building spy-spoof-style, checking around every corner. Sure, it was overkill, but the consequences of failure were unimaginably high.

8:39

Haring down the narrow country lane, Eric glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes to do a journey which should take five, leaving fifteen more to do what he needed before zero hour. Ample time under normal circumstances, but this morning had taught him if anything could go wrong, it would do.
Right on cue, he spotted the worst possible thing – the cab of a tractor rising above the hedgerow as though conjured up by his negative thought. He tried Naomi’s trick, willing it to turn off, but the beast trundled along at half an inch a fortnight, the rear design forming a mocking grin.
Several expletives later, he shuddered at the memory of six months ago when he’d uncovered the MD’s plans to weaponise his latest invention. Eric had volunteered to become Y2K liaison, the perfect excuse to delve into the technologies required to ensure the MD’s scheme never came to fruition. The guy was in bed with gangsters and dodgy foreign militaries, for Christ’s sake.
Sending another blast of turn-off-the-lane energy at the oblivious farmer in front, he thanked the insecurities of his manager who’d fallen prey to the Y2K scaremongering, the latest one being that today’s date could trigger some kind of meltdown. With all the nines and everything. The farmer chose that moment to succumb to Eric’s repeated mantra and turn into the next field and he let rip. Resisting the urge to scream up the drive and exit the car like The Sweeny’s Reagan and Carter, Eric parked carefully and hustled up to the front door, surprised to find it locked.

Happy Harvestide

No this is not my garden today, it's looking as dull and grey as everybody else’s. But I thought there’d be no harm in brightening up the page with a memory of one of the glorious October days when I picked dozens of apples. Our orchard has half a dozen apple trees, and two of them regularly produce 1500 apples (between them) in a good season. That's a heck of a lot of processing, and I usually manage to foist most of them onto my family and neighbours. As for my friends, they duck when they see me coming with a bag of apples and I'd rather have their friendship.
This is just my way of excusing myself for the fact there's no real blog this week.

My Top Thirteen 1999

1. Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much 5-1999
2. Robbie Williams - Strong 4-1999
3. Ricky Martin - Livin' La Vida Loca 7-1999
4. The Divine Comedy - National Express 2-1999
5. Lou Bega - Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of...) 8-1999
6. Macy Gray - I Try 10-1999
7. George Michael & Mary J Blige - As 3-1999
8. Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me 6-1999
9. Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me? 8-1999
10. Blondie - Maria 2-1999
11. Ronan Keating - When You Say Nothing At All 8-1999
12. Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away 2-1999
13. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time 2-1999

And the bubbling unders:
Tom Jones & The Cardigans - Burning Down The House 10-1999
Christina Aguilera - Genie In A Bottle 10-1999
B*Witched - Blame It On The Weatherman 3-1999
Billie - Honey To The Bee 4-1999
Mariah Carey - Heartbreaker 11-1999
Des'ree - You Gotta Be 4-1999
Gabrielle - Sunshine 10-1999
Geri Halliwell - Mi Chico Latino 8-1999
Whitney Houston - It's Not Right But It's Okay 3-1999
Jamiroquai - Canned Heat 6-1999
R Kelly - If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time 11-1999
Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) 6-1999
Madonna - Beautiful Stranger 6-1999
Manic Street Preachers - You Stole The Sun From My Heart 3-1999
Martine McCutcheon -Talking In Your Sleep / Love Me 12-1999
Melanie C - Northern Star 12-1999
Shawn Mullins - Lullaby 3-1999
The New Radicals - You Get What You Give 4-1999
Cliff Richard - The Millennium Prayer 11-1999
S Club 7 - Bring It All Back 6-1999
Savage Garden - I Knew I Loved You 11-1999
Will Smith ft. Dru Hill - Wild Wild West 7-1999
Steps - Better Best Forgotten 3-1999
Stereophonics - Just Looking 3-1999
Texas - In Our Lifetime 5-1999
Shania Twain - Man I Feel Like A Woman 10-1999
The Vengaboys - Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom!! 6-1999
Westlife - Flying Without Wings 10-1999

1990s Gadgets, Inventions etc

1990
Adobe Photoshop
Developed in the late 1980s by PhD student Thomas Knoll, it came to the attention of his brother John, who drew on his experience working for George Lucas’ visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic. They approached Adobe, who bought the distribution licence, and Photoshop 1.0 was released in February 1990.

World Wide Web
The internet (a system of interconnected computer networks) was created in the late 60s, but limited to government departments and research institutions. Tim Berners-Lee a British engineer and computer scientist, working at CERN, developed the first web server, the first web browser, and a document formatting protocol, called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). He also created the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and a system of globally unique identifiers for resources on the Web and elsewhere, the universal document identifier (UDI), later known as uniform resource locator (URL). The first web site, published on December 20th, 1990, was quite rudimentary.

Hubble Space Telescope
Launched in April, it revolutionised astronomy. Its 5 main instruments observe in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to capture extremely high-resolution images with substantially lower background light than ground-based telescopes.

1991
Linux
During his second year at the University of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds he set out to build a new operating system for his Intel PC, which developed into the industry-changing open-source Linux operating system. This ended up as one of the largest platforms for internet companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter.

1992
Text messages

In 1992 Neil Papworth, a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms, successfully sent the first text message to Richard Jarvis, a director at Vodafone. At the time, cell phones didn't have keyboards, so Papworth typed his "Merry Christmas" message on a PC. Early on, text messaging was largely underutilized as phones and network carriers weren’t very accommodating. Screens were tiny and without a keyboard it was quite cumbersome to type out sentences with a numerical dialling input layout. It caught on more in the late 90s as manufacturers came out with models with full QWERTY keyboards.

Nokia 1011
Mobile phones (affectionately known as bricks) appeared on the market in the 1980s. When Nokia launched its first cell phone, the 1011 on 10th November 1992, it changed the way cell phones were viewed, being the first mass-produced GSM phone, and the first mobile phone to support SMS text messages.

1993
MP3s
This file format was defined as a standard for audio encoding by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) - a working group of industry experts. It uses lossy compression to encode data using inexact approximations and the partial discarding of data, allowing for a large reduction in file sizes when compared to uncompressed audio. The combination of small size and acceptable fidelity led to a boom in the distribution of music over the Internet in the late 1990s, with MP3 serving as an enabling technology at a time when bandwidth and storage were still at a premium. German engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg was part of the team at the Fraunhofer Institute who developed the format and, due to his contributions, is often regarded as the “father of the MP3.” The song that was chosen to encode the first MP3 was "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega. After some setbacks, including an instance in 1991 in which the project almost died, they produced an audio file in 1992 that Brandenburg described as sounding exactly like on the CD, and the format was officially published in 1993.

PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants)
These became popular in the mid-1990s with the release of the touchscreen Apple Newton in 1993, although it had a monochrome screen. Later in the late 1990s, the first full-colour PDAs were released, but they had a short battery life. These would gradually merge their features with mobile phones, leading to smartphones such as the iPhone.

1994
Smartphone
Credited as the first smartphone, the IBM Simon was manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric, which integrated features with its own cellular radio technologies. It featured a liquid-crystal display (LCD) and PC Card support. The Simon was commercially unsuccessful, particularly due to its bulky form factor and limited battery life, using NiCad batteries rather than the nickel–metal hydride batteries commonly used in mobile phones in the 1990s, or lithium-ion batteries used in modern smartphones.

1995
Windows 95
The successor to Windows 3.1, it was the first version to include the modern “Windows Feel” (Taskbar, Start Menu) and featured significant improvements over its predecessor, most notably in the graphical user interface (GUI) and in its simplified "plug-and-play" features. It gained immediate popularity and made Windows the standard operating system for most PCs. Windows 98 was even more successful three years later.

Global Positioning System (GPS)
The first prototype spacecraft was launched in 1978 and the full constellation of 24 satellites were installed in 1993, but the system didn't become fully operational for a couple of years. This satellite-based radio navigation system is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.

1996
DVDs
The DVD (short for "digital video disc") was developed in 1995 and released in 1996 as a replacement for VHS. After the hassle of the VHS/Betamax competition, five of the leading computer companies (IBM, Apple, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft) banded together and came to an agreement on a single format. Toshiba released the world's first DVD player in Japan, the SD-3000, however Sony claimed to be the first player in the US the following year. Fujitsu released the first DVD-ROM-equipped computer on November 6 1996 in Great Britain, with Toshiba, Sony and several others appearing by the following May.

1997
Plasma screens
Although the concept was proposed in 1936, and the first prototype was created in the mid 60s, plasma flat panel televisions become commercially available this year, competing against CRT televisions. Philips introduced at CES and CeBIT the first large commercially available flat-panel TV, using the Fujitsu panels. Philips had plans to sell it for 70,000 French francs. It was released as the Philips 42PW9962. It was available at four Sears locations in the US for $14,999, including in-home installation. Pioneer and Fujitsu also began selling plasma televisions that year, and other manufacturers followed.
Although orange-on-black monochrome display plasma screens were available from early 80s, full colour flat panel computer monitors were released commercially to the public in the mid-to-late 90s.

Netflix
Originally launched during the dial-up Internet era, it began by offering DVDs mailed straight to one's home, which the user could select in an online queue. By 2007 it started to offer streaming directly from the Internet, making it a competitor to conventional network television.

1998
Google
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in 1995 at Stanford University. In 1996, the two were writing a program for a search engine called Backrub, and after the success of this platform, they registered the domain name Google.com in 1997. They continued to develop what would become the largest search engine of the in the garage of a friend Susan Wojcicki (who went on to be the director of YouTube). Google was officially incorporated as a company in September 1998.

1999
BlackBerry
The first version was released in January as a two-way pager in Munich, Germany, using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network. It was a solution devised by RIM (Research in Motion) for delivering e-mail over several different wireless networks. The original BlackBerry device had a monochrome display while newer models installed colour displays.


Other Scientific notables
September 90 - The first successful somatic gene therapy trials began.
October 90 - Human Genome Project formally began, with the objective of determining the DNA sequence of the entire euchromatic human genome within 13 years.
January 91 - The first intracytoplasmic sperm injection in vitro fertilization produced baby was born by mechanically injecting a single, selected sperm cell into an egg.
1991 - Detection of extrasolar planets orbiting a pulsar was confirmed.
The development of web browsers such as Netscape Navigator (originally known as Mosaic) in 1993 and Internet Explorer in 1995 made surfing the World Wide Web easier and more user friendly.
From 1994 onward, businesses started building e-commerce websites; e-commerce-only companies such as Amazon.com, eBay, AOL, and Yahoo! grew rapidly.
1994 - The FlavrSavr tomato, the first genetically modified food sold in the United States was introduced.
1994 - Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was discovered by Andrew Wiles and completed.
April 95 - The NSFNET backbone was shut down, making the Internet a unified and "centreless" network without any restrictions on traffic types and essentially causing the Dot com bubble by attracting large-scale corporate investment in the Internet.
July 96 - Dolly the sheep was cloned from an adult somatic cell. The cell used as the donor for the cloning of Dolly was taken from a mammary gland, and the production of a healthy clone, therefore, proved that a cell taken from a specific part of the body could recreate a whole individual.
1996 - Construction started on the International Space Station.
1996 - Google began indexing the World Wide Web.
1996 - USB ports were invented, allowing for computing devices to connect more easily. The USB flash drive debuted in December 2000.
1997 - The first hybrid vehicles are produced.
1998 - The first portable MP3 player, the MPMan was released.
1999 – For several years, certain people had been frantically worrying about the Year 2000 problem (commonly known as Y2K), the computer glitch disaster expected to happen on January 1, 2000.Millions of pounds were squandered in combing through software and on the day it had the impact of a damp squib.


Also in the 90s
Email became popular; as a result Microsoft acquired the popular Hotmail webmail service in 97, renaming it MSN Hotmail.
High-end cars of the 1990s were installed with automatic doors, windows controlled with electric levers, GPS navigation, and CD drives.
DNA identification of individuals, introduced in the late 1980s, found wide application in criminal law.
Protease inhibitors introduced in 1987 allowing HAART therapy against HIV became an important part of HIV treatment in the 1990s and helped to extend and save millions of lives.
Discovery of dark matter, dark energy, brown dwarfs, and first confirmation of black holes.
Active matrix laptop computers became popular and easier to afford.
Satellite television became commonplace.