The Millennium Lunch Club: letter to the press

To the editor, staff and readers of all publications:

We'd like to invite you all to a party...

It has recently been brought to our attention that the great majority of celebrations being organised for the now imminent Millennium fail to effectively address the nature and character of the civilisation which will be launching said festivities. A primary concern with religion, while surely important for some, does not interface with the great currents of materialism that currently make the planet turn, and the distributed nature of contemporary global capitalism dictates against the staging of an event in one particular venue, albeit one as gracious as our wonderful and very world famous Millennium Dome.

Thus we have decided to propose that humankind hold another Millennial event, not so much an alternative to already existing plans but an adjunct, a precursor if you will. A warm-up. This event will be truly inclusive, wildly participatory, wonderfully national (or, if the will is there, even global). Best of all it will be virtually free. It will embrace the true nature of contemporary society; as no other event can it will celebrate what we feel to be the finest aspect of human life and culture over the last two thousand years, the highest achievement of civilised man. It is entirely frivolous and wholly serious. It is: the Millennium Lunch.

The Millennium Lunch - or the Munch, as it will fondly come to be known - is a lunch party to be held throughout August 1999, to which the entire nation, nay, the entire world, is invited. To participate, all you need to do is have lunch in a restaurant, café, or other eatery one day in August - or, indeed, in any public place at all; Millennium picnics are also permittable - and display on your table (picnic rug, etc.) a sign declaring that you are at the Millennium Lunch. And that's it.

But if that's it, why attend? Why bother to come to the Millennium Lunch at all? That's simple - so simple it's beautiful. The Millennium Lunch is an excuse for multiple acts of imagination (combined, of course, with those of mastication and digestion). It's an excuse to do something you do every day, but to do it with conscious intent, perhaps even with flair. This is about celebration, but it's also about aligning your stomach with a great cultural moment and - for the short space of one single lunchtime - turning your life into art. Thus our slogan is a straightforward imperative: Eat, Drink, Think the Millennium. The rest is up to you.

With support from publications such as your own, we can invite everyone to create this greatest of parties out of nothing but the tools they have to hand. You can help by providing a cut-out-n-keep Millennium Lunch table display with one or more of your August editions (a suggested design is enclosed). This could take an exotic a form as a glossy card insert, or the design could simply be printed on a page in place of an ad. The choice would be yours, but by doing this you qualify as an official sponsor of the Millennium Lunch - and you would be entitled to advertise the fact on your version of the table display.

Perhaps you would also like to hold your own Millennium Lunch events which we, the organisers, would be happy to attend. You might exploit long-standing PR and promotion relationships and encourage restaurants to offer discounts and tie-ins to Millennium lunchers. A 10% discount for every Millennium Lunch party for example, or a free bottle of wine, or a charity donation. The possibilities are as multitudinous as capitalism itself.

The Millennium Lunch is a call for participation, for imagination. There are no major expenses involved (unless you want there to be). We ask no pennies for fireworks, no millions for a dome. Publications are being asked to provide table displays, party-goers are asked to buy lunch. And that's it. In the best traditions of capitalism such costs as there are are shared among everyone and just as with capitalism, everyone wins! You win, because people buy your publication in order to get their table display (the one and only rule of the Millennium Lunch is that a table display must be placed on the lunch table at all times during the meal). The good restauranteurs of our nation win, because their establishments will be booked solid throughout August. And the people win, because they get a free invite to the party. Post-prandial Millennium Lunchers will be able to register their participation in the event (thus becoming official members of the Millennium Lunch Club) by emailing their names to: millennium@lunchclub.freeserve.co.uk, or by writing to: We ate the Millennium, XXXXXXX, XXXXXX, London XX XXX. (Table displays will also be downloadable from the Internet site in our letterhead: http://come.to/themillenniumlunch.)

So come on, don't miss out. Contact us with an offer to help and book yourself a table at the Millennium Lunch. The Millennium Lunch - it's the loaves and the fishes all over again.


Signed the undersigned

James Flint (author)
Philip George (Secretary of the Gaia Society)


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