It is 1989. Tim (now Sir) Berners-Lee, whilst working at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, has an idea to create something called the world wide web.
...(sorry, former-Mr Vice President)...
The world wide web, over the course of the following 26 years has turned countless facets of everyday life, be it business or personal, on its head.
The travel industry, as we all know, is one of a string of industry sectors to find itself operating in a fundamentally different way because of the advent of the web.
Search engines, online travel agencies, metasearch, supplier brand websites, etc. Where would we be without them now?
It's a rhetorical question given that there's no turning back the clock (and, indeed, why should we - the industry, arguably, is a more diverse and competitive place now - all good elements for consumers... arguably).
But consider what modern life would be like if Berners-Lee had not followed through on his idea.
This rather amusing video, narrated by British writer and comedian Stephen Fry, asks that very question.
Plenty of cameos from luminaries across many parts of the web, including the co-founders of online travel agency Lastminute.com, Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman (whose entrepreneur network Founders Forum pulled the video together with the help of Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales to promote the work of the Web Foundation).
Enjoy...