Lanka-Arthur C. Clarke, author of "2001: A Space Odyssey," feels so strongly about people calling next year the start of a new millennium that he issued a public statement last week to correct them.

"Because the Western calendar starts with Year 1, and not Year 0, the 21st Century and the Third Millennium does not begin until Jan. 1, 2001," Clarke said in a statement received by Reuters on Thursday.

"Though some people have great difficulty in grasping this, there's a very simple analogy which should appeal to everyone. In the scale on your grocer's weighing machine began at 1 instead of 0, would you be happy when he claimed he'd sold you 10 kilograms of tea?' he asked. "And it's exactly the same with time. We'll have had only 99 years of this century by Jan. 1, 2000; we'll have to wait until Dec. 31 for the full hundred."

Clarke is not the first high profile file figure to make the point. Australian Prime Minister. John Howard tried in 1997 - only to be called the party pooper of the century by newspapers.

Clarke conceded the the psychological effect of the three zeros and the publicity about the Y2K bug that could affect computers was too powerful to ignore.

"So everyone will start celebrating at midnight Dec. 31, 1999," he said, but added that 2000 should really be called the Centennial Year and 2001 the Millennium Year.

The British-born Clarke, who has lived in Colombo for more than 30 years, is the author of scores of novels and sciencefic tion works and the creator of several documentaries. In the last half-century, many of Clarke's predictions have come true, including his then-controversial 1945 outline of a network of geostationary communication satellites.