Just who is gonna party like it's 1999?

Nineteen ninety-nine. It sounds more like a price tag than a year.

"Brand new year, slightly used, still in its box - only 1999." No wonder it's such a bargain.

This is, effectively, a 12 month-long New Year's Eve. We are counting down the hours to next year.

Scientists have already calculated that this year's most asked question will be: "what are you doing for the Millennium?", being posed on average 114,000 times a day.

The most popular reply will be: "We're just going to ignore it." Yet 84 per cent of people who say this are secretly frantic with worry about having nothing special organised.

The social strata is going to be turned on its head this year. Careers teachers will no longer guide their young charges towards banking, nursing or the law. Instead, they will urge them to become waiters, barmaids and baby-sitters.

Their earning potential for one night's work is such that they can take all of 2000 off. Ultimately, this may prove to be a miscalculation. Much of Britain looks set to be at work during the historic changeover.

All police leave has already been cancelled.

Psychiatrists will have to work round the clock to counter mass millennial mental breakdowns.

Computer operators will be on call to deal with those struck down by the Millennium Bug; ditto doctors and nurses.

Shops will open for the 'biggest sale for 1,000 years'.

Insurance agents will be busy informing clients why their policy did not cover Millennium disasters.

Solicitors will be advising clients suffering 'post-millennial stress disorder' how and who to sue.

Double glazing salesmen will be out in force, sensing the chance to maximise public annoyance.

Pubs, clubs and restaurants will be full - of staff.

Owners, belatedly realising that everyone else is too busy to celebrate, will sit and watch their New Year wage bill surpass Carol Vorderman's bank balance.

And journalists (sigh) will be on duty to capture it all for posterity.

Everyone is going to be heartily sick of the whole thing by January 1, 2000. By then the M-word will be banned from polite usage.

Characters in Irvine 'Trainspotting' Welsh novels will scream: "Wha' the M*ll*nn**m dae ya think ya doin', Morag?"

But we'll all have the last laugh when Concorde succumbs to the M*ll*nn**m B*g and drops into the sea at 0001 hours next year, taking all the rich and tedious people on board with it.

We mustn't let 1999 be entirely relegated to the role of 2000's bridesmaid. It is a year in its own right, dammit.

It deserves its own hopes and fears.

In the hopes column:

Glenn Hoddle to resign as England coach and be replaced by someone Scottish. Scots possess an innate ability to manage football teams, so anyone from the land of the deep-fried Mars bar will do. How about Carol Smillie? She could get us to the World Cup and renovate Wembley for under 500 quid at the same time.

Another New Year's wish is that Chris Evans, currently likening his meagre talent with that of the mighty John Lennon in a TV advert, contracts permanent laryngitis from a dodgy kebab.

And the most forlorn hope of all: that British manufacturers start to price their goods in euros so we can instantly compare them to the rest of Europe. Then we'd finally find out how much we're being ripped off by.

Fears:

That the progeny of the Spice Girls and All Saints sign a record deal together before the year is out.

That Tony Blair dyes his hair blond, takes to carrying a handbag and moves in with Peter Mandelson.

And my greatest fear of all for 1999? That the European Union suddenly decides to outlaw disposable nappies.

04/01/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.