Or you prefer: Bonne année/Ein gutes neues Jahr/Godt nytt år/Blein Vie Noa/Blwyddyn newydd dda/Bliadhna mhath ùr/Felix sit annus novus. All the best for the new decade as well {i}
[Equal opportunities linguist]
I hope all goes well for the readers, followers, Romans and countrymen who read this blog. Plus of course the great man himself, the weather god, The Schaf.
{i} Yes I'm aware if you count using calendar years, the start of a new decade would 1st Jan 2001, since there is no year 0 and 1AD followed 1BC
However if you use the scientific system, 1BC is desginated as year 0 (to fill in a missing leap year), with 1(AD) following: So using that system means any year ending in nought is the beginning of a new decade.
Besides a decade is defined merely as a period of ten years. In popular culture (and convenience) we name decades after the last two numbers they end in; to wit the nineties were the years that were (nineteen-)ninety-something.
So the above considered, the nineties ended on Dec 31st 1999 at 23:59. Shortly it will be Dec 31st 2009, 23:59; thus a decade ("the noughties"), ten years, has elapsed and the twenty-tens will commence.
That's that cleared up then. Now can I watch Jools Holland? Even though he's pre-record?
