Apocalypse Soon? #

19 August 1998

Five hundred brief days to go, then. I had intended to devise a wonderful series of five compilation tapes leading up to the millennium, focusing on age, life, history, all that sort of melancholic stuff. And I got round to compiling quite a long list of suitable songs before I got bored of the idea. Too much hassle. But I renewed my acquaintance with lots of wonderful old songs, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.

“And just supposing, just imagine - what if the world wasn’t ending?”

Jack, …Of Lights (1996)

I was thinking and chatting about Y2K some more today - it seems to be the conversation de rigueur at the moment - when I started to think, for the first time, of how silly we apocalyptic doom-laden programmers will appear if there are no problems with the rollover. There I’ll be, sat with my candles, camping stove, bottled water, dried food, Protect And Survive leaflets, blankets, etc, and nothing happens. I would imagine that my family and friends, into whom I am constantly attempting to put the fear of God regarding the millennium bug, would begin to take the piss somewhat.

But then; rather suffer a bit of ribbing at the hands of my friends than go into this thing totally unprepared. Sometimes I worry that the only people taking this seriously are the programmers…