Sir, - A thought for the millennium, bugs notwithstanding. It would be a good time to bring about an overdue rationalisation of the calendar - and I suggest the following.
The day which follows December 31st, 2000 shall be called new Year's Day. It will have no other name, and no date.
The day which follows New Year's Day will be January 1st, Monday, 2001.
The 364 days of the year, New Year's Day apart, divide precisely into 13 months, each of 28 days: the 13th month can be named to choice.
Between one New Year's Day and the next, therefore, there will be 13 four-week months in which the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd are always Mondays, the 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd are always Tuesdays, and so on. Paddy's Day, for instance, would always be a Wednesday, Christmas always a Thursday.
Every four years there would be a second unnumbered day ("Leap Year Day") to do what February 29th currently does.
The idea is hardly new: it was developed as above by some fellow in Minneapolis back in the 1920s as the "Liberty" Calendar (his preferred name for the extra month) and the 13-month calendar was known to our own ancestors thousands of years ago, there being 13 Lunar months in the year and - astrologers please note - 13 signs in a proper zodiac, not the 12 we are used to.
Perhaps our masters in the Belgian capital might care to address this issue at what seems an opportune time, if they can be torn away from weightier matters such as limit-definition in bananas, curvature thereof. - Yours, etc., John D. Cully,
Brennanstown Road, Dublin 18.