A ride was out of the question. Those lucky few of us who had secured tickets for the inaugural ride of the massive London Eye wheel on New Year's Eve were left grounded when the organisers pulled the plug on the "experience" for safety reasons.

Even Tony Blair's perma-grin diminished slightly at the news; but we all still managed a laugh when Virgin Airways, the arch-rivals of the wheel sponsors, British Airways, handed out leaflets saying, "British Airways can't get it up".

Fears that this was an inauspicious sign for the coming night's festivities were added to when the fly-past by Concorde to coincide with the "opening" of the wheel went unseen because of low cloud-cover. Elsewhere, though, the party raged on relentlessly. From early in the day an estimated three million people had crammed into the specially pedestrianised area of London, around the Thames, to join up with "the biggest free millennium party in the world".

First stop was the Mall, outside Buckingham Palace, which was transformed into a giddy, technicoloured light-strewn funfair. Children, delirious with excitement, commandeered dodgems, got thrown around by space-age machines and were turned upside down by gravity-defying mechanical monsters.

Early in the evening a large queue was forming for the privilege of being among the first to bungee-jump into the New Year on a huge catapult outside Clarence House (the Queen Mother's residence).

Beside the Mall, St James's became an unofficial picnic venue on an uncharacteristically mild night and the mood was relaxed and cheerful throughout. But the closer you got to the River Thames, where all the real action was taking place, the less comfortable it got.

With the army on standby for crowd control, roads and bridges were alternately opened and closed to facilitate movement of the crowds. And anywhere within a one-mile radius of Big Ben was severely congested.

Specially constructed "global villages" on either side of the river, by Waterloo Bridge, upped the tempo of the celebrations by providing mini multi-cultural arts festivals, with laser shows, live music shows and food and drink stalls keeping the crowds entertained as the night progressed.

Massive TV screens located around the pedestrianised area kept revellers informed of what was happening further upriver at Tower Bridge and the Dome, and also of events worldwide.

Given the numbers involved, there were remarkably few incidents that threatened to disrupt the celebratory mood. Most people had put their back-packs to good use by cramming them full of alcohol, and even the police turned a blind festive eye to younger revellers rolling their "special" cigarettes. As the minutes ticked away, Big Ben flashed its lights on and off to encourage a communal countdown and at midnight, WHOOSH - a gigantic firework show illuminated the river. Over 40,000 fireworks, organised by Bob Geldof's company, provided a 20-minute pyrotechnic display that thrilled the watching millions. Reportedly the biggest firework display ever staged, the show was so spectacular that the organisers claimed it was visible from outer space.

Champagne got splashed around, people hugged and kissed and in all the excitement no one noticed, or indeed cared, that the much-hyped "River of Fire" (a 200-feet-high flame which was supposed to shoot along the Thames from Vauxhall Bridge to Tower Bridge in 10 seconds) didn't work as planned.

"The River of Fire did happen," said one of the organisers. "The problem was that most people were looking skywards and also that the barges on the river were moored a bit too far apart and the time delay between the detonations was too short, so the effect was diminished."

Still, anybody can set a river on fire, but it's quite another thing to set the entire sky on fire in perhaps the most dazzling spectacle seen in the British capital.

Afterwards, we all marched away to avail of the free 24-hour Tube service (well done London Underground) that delivered us safely to phase two of the celebrations in bars, clubs and houses around the city.

All were agreed: what a swell party it was.