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Great Britain's Culture Secretary is promoting a bank holiday for the nation in late 1999 and the first days of 2000.
This will be part of a national celebration.
Whoopie! Watch everything collapse!
The Bank of England favors the holiday.
This is from the London SUNDAY TIMES (April 17).
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BRITAIN will celebrate the millennium with a four-day Bank Holiday weekend under plans drawn up by Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, which are expected to be approved by Cabinet this month.
Friday, December 31, 1999 will be declared a Bank Holiday under the scheme, and the standard New Year's Day holiday will be taken on Monday January 3, 2000 because January 1 falls on a Saturday. That means most Britons will be able to usher in the new millennium with a one-off midwinter long weekend.
With Christmas Day and Boxing Day also falling at the weekend next year - which means the Monday and Tuesday will also be holidays - there will be only two working days between December 25 and January 4, setting the stage for a massive national celebration. . . .
Extra Bank Holidays are very rarely granted by the Government - next year's will be the first since the Duke and Duchess of York married in 1986 - but consultations on the idea of a millennium holiday have shown it to be overwhelmingly popular.
The Bank of England, business and community groups and local government have given their blessings to the plans, which Mr Smith first suggested last summer, according to officials close to the discussions.
Don Cruickshank, head of the Government's millennium bug task force, is the only important figure to have opposed the holiday. He believes that the break could create further problems for businesses using computer systems affected by the bug.
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