It really is very confusing - just how seriously should one take all the predictions of worldwide chaos as computers fail to cope with the year 2000? To quote from a recent agency story, 'All computerised equipment which has not been altered, including household devices controlled by slave chips, could fail' and some expert on the radio the other week said that even my coffee machine would be affected by the 'millennium bug'.

Now, my coffee machine is pretty goddam sophis (it's a Krups Pro Aroma 5644 with parallel processors and self-cleaning platinum filters, since you ask) - but it can still only be programmed 24 hours in advance. Quite how it's going to be flummoxed on the morning of 1st Jan 2000 I can't quite see. Unless some revellers the night before decide to fill it with taramasalata...

My central heating clock is even cleverer - thinking a week ahead. Yet it just works on a seven-day cycle, so unless they decide to skip an entire day, or add some extra ones to the week, I can't see that I and my fellow revellers will be waking up freezing cold on the 1st of January, 2000.

I decided the only domestic appliance that might give trouble is the video recorder - it's a few years old. So in the interest of science (and avoiding the washing-up) I set the clock for 23:59 on December 31st, 1999 and sat back in my chair, sipped a beer and awaited Armageddon, smoke or at least mangled tape to spill forth from the machine's cassette-flap.

A minute later, the clock flipped over and read:
00:00 1 Jan 2000

The fact that the clock on my ancient video recorder is telling the correct time will be a comfort and a talking point to all of us at the party, as a jumbo-jet ploughs into our neighbourhood because all the Air Traffic Control computers have crashed.

Since this article was written, my spiffy Krups coffee machine has died of its own accord, several months before 31/12/99... so I'm not sure who has the last laugh there!