Don't look back in nostalgia

To do anything in London you first had to find your way out of the smog. 1952 was the year diesel buses replaced electric trams. In December, a mighty combination of fumes and warm air meant great breathing difficulties for the average Londoner.

A five-day long 'killer fog' caused the death of at least 4,000 people. Even City types resorted to wearing masks under their bowler hats.

The death of King George VI and the accession of Queen Elizabeth II dominated the headlines in early 1952. The groundswell of popular goodwill continued well into the following year when Her Majesty's subjects purchased thousands of television sets in order to watch the Coronation live.

If you owned a television in 1952, you would have seen for the first time the quiz show Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? and the children's programme Bill And Ben, The Flowerpot Men. Other television favourites broadcast by the BBC, the only channel on air, included What's My Line? and Omnibus. But mostly you would have relied on the radio antics of The Goons or Joyce Grenfell for your home entertainment.

Venturing into the West End, you could have gone to see The Mousetrap at the Ambassador's Theatre with Richard Attenborough playing the detective. Or gone to the cinema and taken your pick from Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in the Western High Noon, the Toulouse Lautrec biopic Moulin Rouge starring Jose Ferrer and Zsa Zsa Gabor or Singin' In The Rain featuring the tapdancing Gene Kelly.

Identity cards had just been abolished, so there was no need to carry them if you were going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais or the Caf? de Paris - where bands such as Ray Martin's or Frank Chacksfield & His Singing Strings played tunes from the newly introduced record charts (charts had previously relied on sheet music sales).

Not that the typical Londoner had too much money to spare in 1952, even if a three-bedroom house only cost £2,500 (the average wage was £380 a year). Amazingly, meat and butter were still rationed and you could only take £25 to spend abroad. Not enough to romance Brigitte Bardot or Marilyn Monroe...

1977

Having dodged IRA bombs exploding in the West End, you were as likely to be confronted by Anti-National Front protesters as by crowds celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee. Episodes of Starsky & Hutch and Happy Days and Mike Yarwood impersonations made way for blanket coverage of the ceremonies by both BBC television channels (in June ITV was on strike). Even those nasty punk rockers the Sex Pistols weren't allowed to spoil the occasion.

They may have signed with A&M in front of Buckingham Palace but the label soon dropped them when rock stars such as Rick Wakeman objected. 'God Save The Queen', eventually issued by Virgin Records, should have topped the charts on sales alone but as far as Capital and Radio One were concerned, Rod Stewart was number one with 'I Don't Want To Talk About It'.

The nation should have been united in celebration but strikes were rife. The sitcom Citizen Smith starring Robert Lindsay captured the mood of the times. Equally, the pop charts reflected a divided Britain with the bland David Soul, Abba and Wings ruling the roost while the Jam, the Clash and the Stranglers fought it out in the lower reaches and at the Roxy Club in Covent Garden. Mind you, the easy soul of the Floaters' 'Float On' - cue smooth opening line 'Aquarius and my name is Randy' - and the high-pitched wailing of Donna Summer on 'I Feel Love' proved that the UK definitely had sex on the brain.

At the cinema, softcore queen Mary Millington teasingly invited audiences to Come Play With Me - but Star Wars was the defining movie of the year. The term 'Blockbuster' was coined by American film moguls to refer to the crowds snaking around buildings waiting to buy tickets for Star Wars and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Roger Moore's arched eyebrow in The Spy Who Loved Me just couldn't compete. Especially if you were watching the pennies for a Pimlico flat costing £18,950.

2002

No wonder Star Wars Episode 2, already tipped to be one of the biggest movies of 2002, is subtitled Attack Of The Clones. The Golden Jubilee year already looks like a re-run of 1977's Silver Jubilee with superclub Pacha London, texting and a bit of Fifties nostalgia thrown in (you can still see The Mousetrap, for example).

Mind you, this time, in a bid to appear in touch with her younger subjects, the Queen has sanctioned a pop concert in Buckingham Palace Gardens for the Jubilee Weekend in June. Given the Prince's Trust work with rock and pop events, this is not a total surprise.

But whose stars will still shine in the pop firmament in six months' time? Given the ever-quickening pace of the marketplace, the top manufactured acts may well be past their sell-by date.

You're more likely to see members of the Spice Girls or Steps introducing fellow performers rather than appearing at the event. The law of ever-diminishing returns probably means Popstars also-rans Liberty have waited too long to release their own album. Anyway, the British music industry is waking up to the fact that mime artists who could barely enter the Eurovision Song Contest are not exactly shifting units abroad. So everyone is looking for the next Dido or Coldplay - coffee table acts who cross language barriers.

You may well want to check out Haven, a guitar band who combine the sensitivity of Travis with the sonic scope of classic U2. In fact, you've probably already heard their yearning and anthemic single 'Say Something' on the radio. Coldplay and David Gray will also release new albums to prove their lasting worth.

Major movies to tempt Londoners early this year include From Hell, starring Johnny Depp tracking Jack The Ripper in a fog-bound East End, and the remake of the heist movie Ocean's Eleven featuring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts and proving that the late Fifties Rat Pack is where it's at (thankfully, the Frank Sinatra-aping Robbie Williams is not on the soundtrack). Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz should sparkle in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky while Pixar's Monsters, Inc will keep children and adults entertained.

Even the enfants terribles of punk have succumbed to the tie-in madness. The Sex Pistols have been offered more filthy lucre and should perform in London during the Jubilee. It's like punk rock already happened.