The writers who created the popular Books of Lists in the 1970s, a sort of pre-Web compendium of marginalia, also put together a Book of Predictions, which appeared in 1981. Experts in a number of fields were asked to make their predictions for the coming ten, twenty, and thirty years. The results are stunning if only because of their near complete inaccuracy. It is impossible to choose a few to list as most seem about equally absurd. Given the range of predictors - scientists, psychics, celebrities, business people, and others - one would expect that, simply by chance, someone would get something right. But all we get are near misses. No end of the Soviet Union, no Internet, no compact discs, no Dow 10 000.

That's a bit frightening. We look to the future and see... well, we see the continuation of current trends, and very little else. No wonder the future seems to loom over us like Kong. It is not only unknowable, but avoids all prediction and exploration. It is a slippery thing.

If there is a formula for our future anxiety, and it is written out Y2K. Given that there has been, for many years, a thriving industry around supposed and imminent economic collapse, and that such a collapse has yet to occur, it is easy to understand why people are buying this stuff hook, line and sinker.

Will there be a Y2K crisis? Given the huge number of bugs in a typical piece of contemporary software, and recognizing all the other date glitches and complications which can arise, my own take hasn't changed too much. Sure, some systems might fail, but unless the media finds them and plays it up, it will be a normal day at the office. Isn't software crashing all the time, all around us? Windows NT can't seem to keep itself alive for more than a few days at a time.

I have been dealing with my own Y2K bug: a particularly nasty pneumonia-like virus which has been kicking my ass since the day of my defense.