Today is the 11th day of the 12th month of the 13th year in the millennium and at 14:15 and 16 seconds this afternoon the date and time will briefly read: 11/12/13 14:15.16.

11/12/13 is the last date this century with three consecutive numbers - the next for the UK will be February 1, 2103.

Dubbed 'noughts and crosses day' by Ron Gordon, a retired teacher from California who has launched a competition to devise an interesting way to celebrate the day, 11/12/13 is one of a number (no pun intended) of numerical anomalies known as 'sequential days'.

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Sequential days are extremely rare and there are usually a mere handful of them a century - in the UK we won't see one for another ninety years, though in the US (where they write dates the wrong way around) the last one for nearly a century will occur on the 13th of December next year: i.e. 12/13/14.

Another numerical anomaly are the so-called 'Odd Days'. There are only six of these days a century and they occur when every number in the date is an odd number. The last such date occurred last month on the 9th of November - or 09/11/13.

Mr Gordon also coined the term 'Trumpet Day' to describe the date on the second day of the second month in the twenty-second year i.e: 02/02/22.

We'll next celebrate trumpet day in 2022 (if people still care about these things). Another trumpet day could occur in the US (where as previously discussed they write the date wrongly) on the 22nd of February 2022 i.e. 2/22/22 - which in the UK will correctly read 22/02/22.

There's also Square Root Day - 4/4/16 (the last one was on March 3, 2009) and the 'Ones Upon A Day' 01/11/11.

All given their names and celebrated by - you guessed it - Ron Gordon. So, are people excited about the unusual date? Not according to the Times of India.

In a report published today they mournfully noted that couples weren't excited about tying the knot on 11/12/13 noting that bookings 'especially for weddings' were 'abysmal' in the Nagpur district. Spoilsports.