Dear Listener,

I am writing this newsletter on the last day not just of the year but of the decade. Or am I? A listener took me to task for saying before Christmas that the decade ended this week. I also, he says, got the date of the millennium wrong ten years ago. It began he says on 1 January 2001 not 1 January 2000 when almost all the rest of the world celebrated it.

The argument – well rehearsed as the millennium approached – is that the present system of reckoning years began with year 1 AD. The year before that was not zero but 1 BC. And so the end of the first decade was the year 10 not the year 9. And similarly the last year of this decade is the year 2010 not the year 2009. All very logical. But is it sensible?

I always took the view that the millennium happened when all the numbers changed – 1999 became 2000 and we use the ‘2’ at the start of the number rather than a 1 as we had for the entire lives of everyone since hundreds of years before the invention of printing.

And similarly if we refer to the sixties we mean 1960 to 1969 not 1961 to 1970. Donating 1960 to the fifties and stealing 1970 off the seventies doesn’t make any sense.

The historical argument isn’t very helpful either. The present system of denoting years ‘AD’ (short for Anno Domini or Year of the Lord) from the supposed date for the birth of Jesus was only invented in what we would call the year 525 and then only for the purpose of reckoning Easter. It wasn’t clear if Dionysius Exiguus – who devised it – intended Jesus’ birth to be 1BC, 1AD or 2AD. And no modern biblical scholar really believes Jesus’ birth was 25/12/0001 any more than they think the date of the crucifixion wanders around according to the phase of the moon.

Dionysius (and later scholars who took up his idea of AD) did not have a year zero simply because the idea of a numeral for zero was not invented when he did his work. There was certainly no zero in the Roman numerals he would have used and it was another three hundred years in the 9th century before Indian scholars invented zero and  many millennia more before it began to be used in Europe in the 12th century.

So this is the last day of the decade – the noughties – and the start of the next when for ten years there will be a ‘1’ in the third place of our year as we reckon it. That is what I mean by ‘the decade’. And the new decade (there, I said it!) will feature in Saturday’s programme as will the following…

Just before Christmas the Government announced that it wanted to ban what are called ‘logbook loans’. These are small but very expensive loans secured on the logbook of your car or motorbike. APRs are in the hundreds of per cent and the lender can seize the vehicle without going to court if you default. But what can the Government do before the election? Consumer Minister Kevin Brennan answers.

Down, down, down, up, up, up, up, up, down, up, ???? What comes next? That is the change in the FTSE 100 index of shares in our biggest hundred companies this last decade 2000-2009 with the ??? standing for the change in 2010. So what will they be? And where will interest rates be a year from now? Where can you get the best return on your cash savings? And how can you minimise the costs of investing? All questions we will be discussing.

We’ll take another look at Chip and PIN security. How secure are the machines we happily key our PINs into?

We’ll look at how the first rise in the main rate of VAT since 1991 has gone down with shoppers.

And we may – may – look at the future of banking. The Government wants to create more competition so will new players emerge in 2010 – and who will it be?

If you are quietly settling back into normal life after the excitement of Christmas why not pass a pleasant half hour with the New Year with the Money Box Christmas Quiz http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/8418470.stm. There are twenty ticklish teasers to tantalise and torment from the tireless team of Torquemadas that is Toney Tox.

And then you can relax in the familiar warm bath of Money Box itself at noon on Saturday or the end of the weekend soak at 9pm on Sunday or of course anytime on the web – but keep electrical items out of the bath please. Or download the podcast – ditto.

And at www.bbc.co.uk you can also read stuff, watch videos, follow up items, download transcripts and documents, send us your ideas for the programme in 2010. And of course Have Your Say on log book loans and high interest rates – and by high we mean more than 100%.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

e-mail Paul Lewis