Sir, Despite the efforts of your correspondent Mr Smith, and all those numerate enough to know that a decade, century or millennium must end in 0 I fear that there will be dancing in the streets on December 31st, 1999. After all, 2000 sounds a much more glamorous year to welcome than 2001.
In any case, is such spurious accuracy warranted, given that we now know that our calendar was incorrectly zeroed and that the first year of the Lord was neither 1 nor 0? Personally, should I survive to end 1999, there is no way I would postpone filling the polished crystal with late bottled vintage, or whatever, for another year. So let me see no more scorn poured on us prospective 1999 revellers Yours, etc., Malahide, Co Dublin.