I woke today singing and jumping with joy because I knew this was going

I woke today singing and jumping with joy because I knew this was going to be the day the dream brought by the spirits came true."The skull is now in a box awaiting permission from the South African authorities for it to be taken into the country.. LOUISE JURY Greenwich has beaten Birmingham to win the battle to host the nation's millennium celebrations, it emerged yesterday. Michael Cassidy, policy chairman of the Corporation of London which fixed the project's finance, said he had been told, unofficially, that the south- east London site had been chosen.The decision, expected to be confirmed by the Millennium Commission next week, will prove a bitter disappointment to Birmingham. After a quick consultation with the spirits, Chief Gcaleka declared that this was the real McCoy. The whooping started and Mr Brooke said he would be delighted for the chief to take the head back to its rightful owner in South Africa."I have never been so happy in all my life," said Chief Gcaleka "This is the moment I have been waiting for.

It had been dug up, he said, in a field next to the Dornoch Firth in which the family used to keep two white ponies. In a dream, Chief Gcaleka had seen the skull in a field near a forest and a river in which lived a white pony.So there was more excitement when the Dingwall Museum staff remembered a story about a skull found on the 14,000 acre estate of Charles Brooke at Mid Fearn, Ardgay.The skull, left for years on a shelf in a shed on the estate, had been in Mr Brooke's family for 130 years. Only its union with Hintsa's body can end the cycle.Yesterday, his search appeared to be in vain when skulls at the military museum in Fort George, near Inverness, and at the Dingwall Museum, turned out not to be Hintsa's.He had doubted they would be. STEVE BOGGAN Chief Reporter Against all expectations, after a journey spanning thousands of miles and 160 years, a bony relic claimed to be the head of an African chief is on its way home.Chief Nicholas Gcaleka left his native South Africa on a spiritual dream- fuelled quest half way around the world to the chilly fields of the Dornoch Firth in Scotland seeking his prize.When he found it yesterday it was a little battered - in fact it had a bullet-hole in it - but that was all part of the evidence that convinced Chief Gcaleka that this was the skull of his long-dead ancestor, King Hintsa of Xhosa, a tribal leader shot dead by the British in the Cape in 1835.Chief Gcaleka, resplendent in leopardskin, has been searching Scotland for more than a week, checking military museums and following up military tip-offs as to the location of his great-uncle's skull, hacked off and transported to Scotland after his death.The chief, whose quest is rumoured to have been paid for by President Nelson Mandela, has argued that Chief Hintsa's headless spirit is wandering South Africa, causing crime and violence. At the time, a company representative said: "Both sides will admit to experiencing some difficulties."Staff at the computing division declined to discuss the matter yesterday, but an NRA spokesman said: "We have reached the stage where we don't believe Logica will be able to deliver the system that we want in time."The legal battle means that 18 months of work may now go to waste, and the merger in April of the NRA with other regulatory bodies - Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution and the Waste Regulatory Authorities - could seriously delay any replacement further.Karl Schneider, news editor of Computer Weekly, said yesterday: "Our understanding is that this is a classic case where a project fails because the project specification changes and neither side can agree whether the change means that it is the same system as was required in the first place.".

It said: "We in the field have little faith in our national computing unit, who have provided little or nothing to aid the business to deliver a professional approach to water management."In November the NRA and Logica began talks to try to reschedule the project. Staff at the NRA expressed severe doubts about the progress of the contract as early as September.The Independent has seen an anonymous letter, apparently from a member of the authority's computing staff, which was sent to the trade paper Computer Weekly. It would have put a single, integrated national system in place of 640 incompatible computer systems, some 20 years old, inherited when the NRA was set up in 1989.The first part of the system was due to begin operating last summer, but had not been installed by November. This would give the NRA the ability to record nationwide data about levels, flow and water quality in rivers and groundwater, based on readings taken every 15 minutes at sites around the country.

The company added that it had "consistently acted in good faith and with the best intentions".Logica was awarded the contract to build a to build a computer system called WAMS - Water Archive Monitoring System - in July 1994. As a result, it might issue incorrect facts to firms using rivers as water sources or outfalls.The lawsuit, newly filed by the NRA against Logica, could mean that a computer system to process such information, which should have been partly installed by last summer, is not in place before the end of this year.The NRA's writ claims thatLogica "is unwilling to deliver the contractually agreed system at the contractually agreed price within a reasonable timescale." It is suing to recover pounds 4m paid to the company so far, plus unspecified damages.Logica has responded by contesting the NRA's grounds for action, saying, "it is Logica's contention that the NRA is terminating the contract for its own convenience". CHARLES ARTHUR Science Correspondent Vital information about river pollution and water quality is not being recorded on computer because of a pounds 10m contractual dispute in which the National Rivers Authority is suing a British software company.The lost data could mean that during extreme weather conditions - such as droughts or floods - the NRA is unable to determine the quality and quantity of the water available. The body was kept at home and people came and went paying their respects as I invoked the deceased ancestors and called on the vital elements. The crematorium was helpful and removed crosses and allowed a pagan service, but by then the process was complete," she said.However, other funeral directors and health officials are not so helpful, so the paganswant their own burial ground.Miss Wildwood said two potential sites had already been offered for sale, but in the meantime, her regular search would continue..