Another hour, two at the most and the place will be empty, just another stretch of pitted, stained tarmac waiting for the dawn and the people to bring about the daily miracle of its recreation.

BBC: Djemaa el Fna, the beating heart of Marrakesh

"They must have been waiting for the crack of dawn to come out and start booking people, " he said.

BBC: Bath driver given parking ticket for leaving car in snow

For the people Alex Heard has been talking to across the United States for roughly the past decade, the dawn of the 21st century involves waiting for enlightened space travellers, stockpiling food and ammunition for an environmental Armageddon or preserving severed human heads for the day when all disease can be cured.

ECONOMIST: The other millennium bug