2021 vision

TODAY may be the start of a new year, but contrary to the claims of many, it is not the start of a new decade. even the Saturday essay by Dominic Sandbrook marking the end of the 2010s made this mistake.

The new decade actually starts in 2021. The same misconception happened in 1999, when many people wrongly celebrated 2000 as the start of a new millennium.

Newspapers on New Year’s Day 1901 got it right when they announced the start of a new century.

RAY BUTLER, address supplied. CONTRARY to what the Queen said in her Christmas message, we have to wait another year for the start of a new decade. There was no year zero.

M. LONGLEY, Tadworth, Surrey.