Sir, - Look here! There's been more than enough about this millennium baloney, or mystique, as you call it.
Forget those precious precisionists and pay attention to those of us who keep our feet on this earth, as we keep careful count of its purely passive peregrinations in solar servitude using a method of enumeration that is ours to do with as we will. No one ever suggested that 1990 was the last year of the Eighties. Practical people know that the Nineties are those years whose two digit designation starts with a 9. Similarly, this millennium is the years whose four digit designation starts with a 1. So this is the last year of this decade, as it is of this millennium. (I was almost going to say: Go mbeirimid beo ag an am seo aris).
"But", I hear them splutter, "that means that the first millennium had only 999 years." Yeah! And the first century had only 99 years, and the first decade nine. Who cares? It was a long time ago. Anyhow, who ever said that calendars have to be entirely consistent? We are now in a series of months with 28, 31 and 30 days, respectively. Is anyone objecting to the fact that this year has 365 days while next year will have 366?
So let this be the last letter on this subject, and let's get back to what matters: keeping Kevin Myers in check, watching out for the last cuckoo of the millennium, the correct use of English, etc. (Incidentally, that was a real reverend mother headline on your editorial: Regional Policy in Flitters. Sure it's in flithers! - Yours, etc., Frank Farrell,
Lakelands Close, Stillorgan.