December 14, 1999. Copyright, 1999, Graphic News. All rights reserved

STRANGE GUESTS AT MILLENNIUM PARTY

LONDON, December 14, Graphic News: FOR AN arbitrary calendrical calculation, the millennium is causing an unprecedented amount of hand-wringing Ð and not just among believers awaiting Armageddon. With just days to go, it seems we still canÕt agree on when it is, where it starts or what we should be doing to celebrate it. Or, indeed, whether we should be celebrating at all Ð since thousands of computers remain vulnerable to the Y2K bug, precipitating an administrative nightmare.

For most of the world, the celebrations begin at the same moment the computers crash: 00:00 hours on January 1, 2000. But that, as pedants have been quick to point out, can also be interpreted as the beginning of the last year of the current millennium.

Either way, the party may be disrupted by an event, sadly, not covered by travel insurance policies: the end of the world. The year 2000 has been earmarked as the date for the apocalypse since the 16th-century prophet Nostradamus wrote that, at the end of 1999, Òfrom the sky will come a great King of Terror.Ó His vision has since been adapted by numerous religious groups, from the quirky to the suicidal and the murderous.

There was George King, the London taxi driver who in 1955 restyled himself His Eminence Sir George King, and announced that Jesus Ð who had been brought to earth in a flying saucer disguised as the Star of Bethlehem Ð was now living on Venus with Buddha and other religious VIPs. His followers believe that an age of Utopia may dawn soon Ð but only if they avert potential catastrophe by storing prayers in special batteries.

Meanwhile, the JehovahÕs Witnesses have grown gradually less specific about the date set for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Their initial estimate, 1874, was revised to 1914 and then 1975. The group announced in 1995 that it would not be making any more estimates Ð although the date is still believed to be imminent.

More sinister groups have also seized upon the millennial dateline: it was an impending apocalypse that is believed to have inspired the Aum Shinrikyo cultÕs gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995, which killed six people. And the 39 members of the Californian HeavenÕs Gate organization who killed themselves in March 1997 believed that swallowing a lethal cocktail of phenobarbitol and vodka would transport their souls to a passing spaceship, offering sanctuary from a world that was shortly to be destroyed.

Worst of all, it seems that their beliefs could be justified Ð to an extent. But it is the unprepossessing microchip, not NostradamusÕs King of Terror, which could precipitate Armageddon.

While workplaces worldwide are highly unlikely to grind to a standstill Ð revellers travelling to exotic locations for the millennium at least have this consolation: if the air transport system does break down at midnight on January 1, 2000, it could be some time before they get back to the office.

/ENDS