My Weekly Rant !!

January 1st 2000

So here I am, I sit here nursing my first hangover of the New Year thinking of what has passed and what is to come. And the Last night of the 20th Century.

*Cue flashback sequence*

So the middle of London, and ok we left it a bit late but we have managed to get there, aware that somewhere by the River is where the fun is at but not exactly sure where or how to get there due to the fact that SO many people want to be there and it has been closed by the Police. However despite the fact that all the major roads and side streets were closed by the police to inhibit people from getting to the water front, we managed it by sneaking through a park and voila. And for the Millennium celebrations, well we were in front of the river, across the Thames from the London Eye* and able to see Big Ben chime in the new century. How fantastic. The fireworks were amazing, although we did not see the legendary 'River of Fire' we had a good time, and a fantastic bottle of Champagne heralded in the new Millennium and aided my quest for a new hangover !! ;0)
And that is it, it is about 1:09am and what does this mean ? Yep it means I am writing this e-mail at pretty much the same time as I wrote the 1997 New Year Rant. Yes its sad but true. I have been researching my past Rants so that I don't get any similarity to the past ones. I watched some show, ok it was called Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell and it was not only fantastic but he wrote columns in a newspaper but often got drunk. If he was ever too hungover to have his column ready in time, the editor would say he is unwell or his article will not appear because it is strikingly similar to the last one. And YES I have been accused of writing similar Rants and so I have tried to get them different.
However I decided to reflect on the past millennium. What bit of it I know. Since starting this Rant business in March 1997, I wrote 11 Rants that year, and following that in 1998 I managed 10 whole Rants in a year, not bad for a weekly Rant, however this year, yes the fantastic 1999, I managed a whole 6 weekly Rants. I did so well, although I have been busy and excuse excuse excuse .............

And so sat here, safe in the knowledge that the first movie I saw this year was The Sound of Music, I look forward and in the vein of every good New Year, attempt to predict the utterly unpredictable and give my own premonitions of what is to come !

Well in the future we will all be able to travel intercontinentally by large vacuum sealed tubes which run through the middle of the earth, making travel to America a half hour journey and Australia would take the time it takes to watch "Chasing Amy" on the new improved recordable 3 times capacity and tea making DVD player. However the rail services which run nationally will slow down and run much worse than they do now.

Of course aeroplanes will be defunct because of the travel tunnels and will be sold and used as inter-planetary vehicles so that we may visit our friends in space. It is discovered that Mars is infact inhabited and we have not heard from them before because they did not want to be discovered. Why else do you think all the probes that go to Mars disappear in such strange circumstances ? They have dismantled them and turned them into the first inter-planetary tv aerial and have been watching tv shows from Earth for years, learning all about us and our strange ways (come on, if you thought that we all acted like the people in "Friends" you would get suspicious !

And of course, I will be here, nursing a hangover and trying desperately to think up an idea for a Rant, writing numerous e-mails and having as much fun as I can afford.
And so I bid you all a fantastic New Millennium, hope you have lots of fun this Century and take good care of yourselves. And to all of you (you know who you are) that I have loved, still do love, or hope to someday love, best wishes and hope the Millennium Bug didn't bite too hard !!
Hugs and Kisses (where appropriate)
Darren 2000

*A huge wheel erected on the Thames