[plug] [OT] When to celebrate New Year

[Leon Brooks]

Phrrk, phrrk, is this thing on? (-: First test of the official OT system? :-)

The ancient Egyptians celebrated New Year when the Nile flooded, typically in 
late September. The Babylonians chose a day in Spring (our Autumn). The 
Romans started the year on the 1st of March (Calends) until Julius Caesar's 
calendar adjustments. The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) doesn't exactly 
track ours, and the Muslim New Year has a lunar basis (although some variants 
stick to 21 March). Hindus celebrate it at a variety of times (including 1 
January, and October (Diwali). Vietnam starts their year between late January 
and late February, not too different from the Chinese New Year (which takes 
15 days to implement).

So... many opportunities for celebrating the New Year just in that lot (Adrian 
will be pleased!). However, we're not done yet: there's a chance to triple 
your partying. We change days at midnight; Biblical cultures originally 
changed at sunset as per the evenings and mornings of Genesis 1, this can 
still be seen in New Testament times; solar cults change their days at 
sunrise... but wait! We're Unix freaks, we can also clock over days at 
midnight but in the GMT/UTC timezone. (-:

So... sunset, midnight, sunrise, 8AM times 9 different days (23 if you count 
each day of Chinese New Year separately) equals either 36 or 92 parties per 
annum. I'm surprised that grog shops haven't cottoned on to this yet. (-:

Cheers; Leon