James Flint: The Millennium Lunch is Live!

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 16:06:15 +0100
From: James Flint <flint@bigfoot.com>
To: nettime <nettime@basis.Desk.nl>
Subject: The Millennium Lunch is Live!

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

Yes, that's right, but this ain't any old party. This is the world's
biggest party, and the whole world is invited. And that includes you. In
fact, as recipients on this mailing list, you're all doubly invited, and
we can't say much fairer than that. 

Confused? You won't be, after you read The Millennium Lunch Club of Great
Britain's "Letter to the Press", reproduced below. Within the last two
weeks his letter has been sent out to all major British newspapers and
magazines and now we at the Millennium Lunch Club await a predicted
avalanche of response. 

Please give a couple of minutes of your time to read the letter or visit
our website (http://come.to/themillenniumlunch). It'll be worth your
while, honest. And, if you like what you read, please - TELL YOUR FRIENDS
(especially if they work in the media). The Millennium Lunch is a
beautiful idea - but it's hungry for publicity. Right now it's just a
little media virus. But we want it to be a monster, and to do that we must
give it media to feed on. Help it out if you can. If you do, email details
of your efforts to millennium@lunchclub.freeserve.co.uk, and we'll
register you as an official sponsor of The Millennium Lunch. 

If we get it right, the Lunch could munch the Dome - and what could be
better than that? So come dine at the Millennium Lunch - it's the loaves
and the fishes all over again. 



Best regards


James Flint and Philip George

(The Millennium Lunch Club of Great Britain)



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* * * * *


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, 45 Manneby Prior, Cumming Street, London N1 9JA. (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 (President of the Gaia Society)







Mercury: 'Oh, most high and mighty Master, I implore you to spare your miserable slave! I did not know that you were such a potent philosopher!'

Alchemist: 'Oh, would you not guess as much from the philosophical way in which I operated on you?'


!


Blah: +44 (0) 171 837 7479

Blither: +44 (0) 793 137 2461

Blax: +44 (0) 171 689 5008

Blather: flint@bigfoot.com

Blurb: www.bigfoot.com/~flint