G'day all!  At the risk of being expelled from MMD, I thought I would
ask our very wide selection of members whether there is any local
discussion of when the new millennium really does start?

Here there is a very strong desire to celebrate it on 1 Jan 2000,
largely promoted by the media and organisations which have a financial
interest in it, despite the howls from the "experts" who insist we are
a year too soon!  I admit to agreeing with 2001 because the Roman
numbers on which the early calendar was based didn't start with a zero
so the first decade ended at the _end_ of year 10 and the second
millennium ends on 31 Dec 2000 (there are 1000 years in a millennium,
not 999!).

I will be celebrating the start of the LAST year of the second millen-
nium in a few days!  Some people intend to celebrate twice but I think
the real one(?) will be a fizzer.  Of course, if we want to be correct
about this, the date has already passed because they got the start date
wrong: Herod died in 4 BC!

Of course, this makes the name of the Millennium Bug wrong (Year 2000
is better) but then it happens every 100 years so it should be called
the "Century Bug"!

Cheers,
Darrell Clarke
Clarke's Corner, Adelaide
South Australia