01.01.00: BUSINESS PAID the highest price for the biggest party the world
has seen: some economists estimated the cost at $1 trillion, as public
services, retailing, industry and the financial sector all suffered heavy
down-turns and lost man hours. The debugging bill for the dreaded Y2K
computer bug is about $600billion.
Most predicted worst-case computer scenarios, from crashing cardiac
ventilators to plummeting planes, just didn't happen. But the unexpected was
bound to. Just hours before the Millennium Dome minister, Lord Falconer,
welcomed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to the opening, five electrical
engineers were freed from the Mind Zone. Security computers had
inadvertently locked them in.
Despite the headaches, the festivities seemed worth it. As the millennium
dawned most of the world put aside its troubles and partied.
But unprecedented levels of traffic pile-ups caused tempers to flare in
London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. In Bristol, Edinburgh and
Dundee all vehicles were banned from city centres.
London's celebrations were boosted by some of the world's brightest
millennium attractions, including London's Dome, Millennium Bridge, Wheel
and Village. Greenwich's festivities attracted almost 1billion TV viewers.
Pubs enjoyed 24-hour custom and charged extortionately for the privilege as
the capital's streets became a raucous playground.
From the Eiffel Tower to Times Square, the world's landmarks were focal
points for carousing. In the Californian desert, 2.5m revellers raved all
night. In the Pacific, thousands of people flew from Tonga to Samoa crossing
time zones to celebrate the millennium twice.
The media noted two dozen armed conflicts raging around the world as the new
year flicked up the zeroes. They reported the birth of 380,000 babies (with
a life expectancy of 86 years in the US, 41 years in Sierra Leone). Other
species continued vanishing at a rate of 74 every day.
The world's newspaper leader writers and broadcast pundits poured out their
predictions aware that, in time, they could appear comically naive.
A changing century is also a time for reflection. One hundred years ago, The
Times pondered on the Empire and Britain's future thus: "The New Year is not
unlikely to mark a turning point... important tasks lie before us, and on
the manner in which we fulfil them our future as a ruling people and as a
Great Power largely depends."
The rest is history. FM
