Gen X'ers: If you could rename your generation, what would you name it?

As a teenager Jacobs was passionate about politics. He wanted to see the eradication of slums, an increase in pensions, the open sale of contraceptives and cuts in defence spending. He had even joined one of the Aldermaston marches. 'The Bomb,' he said then, 'it should be banned from the world. I know this all sounds very idealistic, but I hope things will have changed by the time I make that effort to find a seat at Westminster.'

This winter marks 40 years since Jacob made those comments in the cult book, Generation X. He is now 56 and, though he has never taken a seat in the House of Commons, he remains passionate about politics. However, as a tax lawyer in the City of London, he plans to vote Conservative at the next election. 'I predicted the change,' he said, laughing. 'I also predicted that probably by the time I was 40 I would be Conservative like my father.'

Jacobs was part of the original Generation X (and not one of the youths described by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 book of the same name). The original Generation X were all teenagers in the Swinging Sixties - young adults whose lives were documented in a unique social project put together by two authors who set out to understand the youth of their time. In researching and writing Generation X Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson exposed a cultural revolution.

The Observer, instrumental in revealing the first members of Generation X in an article published in November 1964, can now reveal how its leading lights have changed over four decades.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jan/23/britishidentity.anushkaasthana