By Rupert Goodwins January BT's shareholders work out that as the company has steadfastly refused to innovate while borrowing huge sums of money for a me-too licence in 3G cellphones, it's in a spot of bother. Share price plummets. Cisco steps in to buy company, with plans to roll out ADSL-powered voice and videoconferencing over the Internet to entire nation whether they want it or not. Entire country rapidly transforms itself to a huge Big Brother replica, and starts spending its evenings watching itself watch itself. February Collapse of high-tech stock market continues, leading to global surplus of worthless dotcom companies.
Cisco watches ongoing stock slide with panic.
Sells BT to Virgin Mobile. March Tony Blair calls election, hoping to get in under the wire before the global economy collapses to the point where most companies are beholden to Yoshi and Kazui at Kyogoku Elementary School. April MP3 fever reaches new levels of incandescent madness. Simultaneously, advances in wireless data technology mean that each player can be kept fed with constant stream of new music via Napster, and country disappears under melee of constant noise. Music industry finally works out that this is a Good Thing for them, and changes the mechanics of the pop charts to reflect MP3 plays rather than record sales.