Millennium

Do you remember this time last year? Millennium fever swept the land. We all had great plans to celebrate the end of a thousand years and to welcome in the next thousand. Then reality, that miserable spoilsport, set in: pedants wrote to the newspapers pointing out that according to the ancient calendars and the confluence of the moon, blah, blah, blah, the millennium was not due for two more years (or it had already happened, depending on which newspaper you read).

Some of our plans then were hopelessly ambitious. Ordinary British people talked of sipping cocktails on Bondi beach. Others talked wild-eyed (and after a few drinks) of hiring baronial halls in Scotland and filling the chilly bedrooms with 117 of their friends and relations – forgetting, in their millennial fever, that their mother was unlikely to bond with their friends, nearly all of whom had spent time in drug and alcohol rehabilitation units.

Some were aiming for the long-haul thrill option: bungee-jumping off Niagara Falls, swimming with sharks in the Red Sea, walking unarmed through the Somalian bush. Then they realized that the airlines were hiking up their fares by as much as three times, and so were forced to consider the ‘staying in Britain' option.

Now I don't know about you, but I've been disenchanted and angered many times by the British hotel industry. In my view, Fawlty Towers didn't go far enough. I've spent too many hours in hushed hotel dining rooms with ancient waiters creeping along swirly carpets, carrying silver domes covering wizened chops and sodden vegetables. These hideous foodstuffs are served between fork and spoon, à la silver service, and are stone-cold by the time they hit your (cold) plate. I hardly dare step inside the dining room at breakfast time because of the toast factor. Call me capricious, call me demanding, but I like my toast to be served with my breakfast, not as a soggy afterthought.

The British are an extremely clever, innovative people. The list of our achievements is truly impressive. We produced Shakespeare, the jet engine and the Beatles, so why can't we ever get hot toast right? In your average hotel the toast is usually served just as you're about to rise to your feet and go to your room to start packing. As I walk down the hotel stairs towards the dining room I rehearse my speech… Me (to Ancient Waiter): ‘Would it be possible to have my toast served at the same time as my eggs and bacon, please?’ Ancient Waiter (looking alarmed): ‘It's not our usual policy, madam.’ Me: ‘Yes. I realize that, but I'm asking you to break with years of tradition and serve the toast with the breakfast.’ Ancient Waiter (shaking head): ‘You'll have to talk to the manager, madam. It's more than my job's worth.’

Some people maintain that the millennium is nothing more than a marketing opportunity, hyped up so that we will be hypnotized into buying T-shirts, mugs and souvenir replica Domes. And, of course, this is true. We live in a world controlled by market forces. Were Jesus to be reborn today, you could guarantee that Hello! would have a fifteen-page spread of the event. Joseph would have his hair and beard styled by Bethlehem's most fashionable coiffeur, and Mary would be given a complete makeover and a personal trainer to get her figure up to scratch. Brooklyn Beckham has set a new standard for celebrity babywear, and Jesus's swaddling clothes would almost certainly be exchanged for something more cutting edge, in leather, or maybe velvet.

Hardly anyone I've spoken to intends going to the Dome (apart from a few Greenwich residents, who somehow feel a proprietorial fondness for the thing). This reluctance must be due, in part, to ignorance as to the contents of the big tent. I'm an interested person, but if I were to be tortured, I'd still be unable to tell you what exactly it is inside that's going to thrill and delight us once we've stumped up our twenty quid entrance fee. However, I am excited by the huge Catherine wheel that has been erected by the Thames. When lit, it will be a glorious and celebratory sight.

So, what are my own plans for the millennium night? The true answer is that I have none. I may make the ultimate sacrifice and baby-sit the grandchildren; we could have a midnight winter picnic, with fireworks, and joke about their parents. We'd then drive home to eggs and bacon and the first hot buttered toast of a new dawn.