London, May 3: Tonight was a special one for numerologists. At two minutes and three seconds past 1 am, the time was 01:02:03, on 04-05-06.

This will not happen again for another century, although those not counting the seconds were rewarded only 20 minutes later, at 1.23 am on 04-05-06. One newspaper in London said that two minutes past eight on February 20, 2002, (or 20:02, 20-2-2002) was “a split second of true cosmic significance” because it was a palindrome.

In just over a month, the date will be a disturbing 06-06-06 or 666, which is the number of the beast in the Bible’s Book of Revelation.