'London Eye' comes to a grinding halt

By Thomas Abraham

LONDON, DEC. 31. Lingering worries about the impact of the ``millenium bug'' on computer systems as well as embarrassing organisational slips have cast a small shadow over the elaborate preparations that Britain has made to welcome the new millenium.

Britain has made most of its role as home to the Greenwich Meridian and unofficial timekeeper to the world. The heart of the celebrations will be the new Millenium Dome at Greenwich, in south London, which will be officially opened by Queen Elizabeth shortly before midnight. But despite months of preparation and a large budget, the organisers failed to take the elementary precaution of sending out invitations in time to the several thousand celebrities and guests who will be present at the ceremony. Only a third of the invitations have gone out in time and the tight security will keep many away.

Another major millenium attraction, a huge ferris wheel known as the ``London Eye'', which was supposed to give passengers a panoramic view of the city's sky line, will not open as scheduled tonight after a clutch on one of its passenger capsules was found to be defective. There is growing confidence though that one of the big worries of the millenium - the crash of the computer systems that control everthing from electricity generation to automatic teller machines in banks will not happen. Fears of air traffic control and communciation systems failing appear to have diminished after the Government and private businesses spent millions of pounds rectifying potential faults. The problem lies mainly with older computer systems, which identify dates by the last two digits of the year. These systems could read the year 2000 as ``00'' and stop functioning.

The Government says it is confident that the computer systems dealing with essential services will function normally through the millenium. The Minister in charge of preparing for the millenium bug, Ms. Margaret Beckett, said there was no risk of disruption to infrastructure services in Britain. She told Parliament that systems in government departments would function as normal. While major systems will work, minor problems that individuals may face came to light earlier this week, during the post-Christmas shopping season. Thousands of bargain hunters discovered that certain credit cards machines had stopped working because they did not recognise the year 2000. The error is expected to disappear by the new year.

Analysts have, however, warned that millenium bug related problems will not be confined to New Year's day alone but are likely to surface in the weeks that follow.

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Section  : International
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