Tomorrow all over the world some will be celebrating the New Year.

But for millions of others, 2009 has either already started or won’t be starting until long after January 1.

So when Big Ben bongs 12 tonight, followed by the popping of corks and fireworks, contrary to what television presenters may say the world will not be celebrating as one.

Even allowing for time zones, New Year represents different things to different people. Everyone ‘does it’, to paraphrase Noel Coward, but the way they do it differs from country to country, culture to culture. Muslims have already done it.

As though to demonstrate that there’s nothing like looking back to the future, the Muslim New Year started on December 29. For them, the year 2010 is due to start on December 18 next year.

Former Bradford Lord Mayor Mohammed Ajeeb said that for most Muslims January is a month of mourning rather than celebration.

He said: “The Prophet’s grand-children were killed in a battle in January. It’s a significant event in the Islamic calendar because without that sacrifice Islam would not have spread.

“Shias will mourn for ten or 30 days. The majority of Muslims in Bradford are Sunnis and they will probably mourn for ten days. No happy occasions like weddings will be taking place.”

The Chinese New Year isn’t due until January 26.

Devout Jews must wait until September 19 to celebrate Rosh Hashanah or ‘head of the year’.

Long before 1905, when Albert Einstein formulated the idea of the relativity of time and space, people understood that the idea of time varies according to geography and culture.

In England, for example, until 1752, New Year started sensibly on March 15, connecting the Christian festival of Easter with spring and the start of new growth.

The English, unlike most of Roman Catholic Europe, followed the Julian Calendar.

Man-made time in Europe followed the calendar as amended by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, which fixed the New Year on January 1 – the coldest, bleakest month of the year, at least it is in Northern Europe.

In Bradford, as in other English towns and cities, the customary way of celebrating New Year is to go out and get as Brahms and Liszt as possible before midnight.

Poles, too, like a drink on St Sylvester’s Eve. Every month has a saint’s name in the Polish calendar. Sylvester was a Pope credited with saving the world from the wrath of a dragon. As a result, the last day of December was named after him.

“It’s a very important celebration in Poland, one of the highlights of the year,” said Jan Niczyperowicz, of Bradford’s Polish Parish Club in Edmund Street where there will be a dance tonight.

North of the Border, of course, New Year is a big deal; they even have a special name for it – Hogmanay.

Russians follow the decree by Tsar Peter the Great in 1699 and celebrate New Year on January 1. They have a New Year’s Tree – novgodnaya yolka – with a star and sweets.

In India, people offer prayers and then party. Dinners are sumptuous, bonfires are lit, fire-crackers burst and resound.

The idea of seeing in the New Year alone for an Indian is unthinkable. By getting together with others, in restaurants, cinemas, the streets, a spirited communal farewell is given to the old year.

When New Year comes round for Jews in September, apples dipped in honey and circular bread symbolising the year’s cycle, will be eaten.

Another custom, ‘tashlikl’ or casting off, requires Jews to go to the nearest river or stream and empty their pockets, as an act of casting off sin. The love of money is the root of all evil.

Ah well, szozeslivego nowego roku (sh-chow-shlee-vago-novego) as they say in Poland. However, after a few speech-slurring bevvies Happy New Year is liable to sound like that in any language.