The End of Summer Time

I lift my head slowly to look at the clock – 6 something – but I remember that British Summer Time ended last night so it's really only 5 something. I close my eyes and try to stop myself from waking but within an hour I give it up as a lost cause and drag myself out of bed.

My wife has been awake for hours and is playing on her computer. I take her cereal and orange juice, turn on my own computer. It immediately tells me it has changed the clock. Bully for it, I think as I check my email.

Still bleary-eyed I make my breakfast and turn on the TV. I watch for a while and then turn on "teletext" to check the time. I start with the video handset and reset the clock by sixty presses on the minus minutes button and then press the OK button to send the time to the video recorder itself. Next is the "digibox" - the digital TV signal receiver - I have to cycle through three menus before just reducing the hour by one.

The carriage clock on the mantelpiece is easy – just turn the dial back. The wall clock is the same except that I crick my neck trying to fix it back on the hook. I take the mobile [cell-phone] out of my jacket pocket. The battery is dead so I have to fit it to the charger. After searching my way around the obscure menus I finally reset the time.

In the kitchen, the central heating boiler has a dial – it won't go back but it is simple enough to turn it forward 23 hours. The microwave oven is a different kettle of fish – it has to be completely re-programmed from scratch.

Before I can deal with the telephone answering machine, I need to rummage though piles of magazines and catalogues to find the manual. Like the microwave, you can't just alter the hour but have to go through various menu options and set the time up from scratch.

Upstairs in the bathroom, the carriage clock is easy to do – a manual turning back of the dial. My wristwatch is simple too. The alarm clock is more tricky. It has fast and slow advance buttons on the back and the first time I run straight past. The carriage clock in the bedroom has stopped. It needs a new battery. I turn it to face the wall and forget about it.

An hour has passed and apart from my wife's personal timepieces which she can do herself, I'm finished. My wife by now is fast asleep.

I go downstairs, make a cup of tea, turn on the TV. After a short piece about a religious sect who practice non-violence, the presenter asks "did you enjoy your extra hour in bed this morning?" Pressing the off-button, I think for a quarter of a second and throw the remote control onto a cushion instead of at the TV.

For an alternative take on all this, see my poem Limbo Time



Unlike the Town Hall Clock which yesterday showed the correct time, this one in the Clarendon Shopping Mall is some five minutes slow. Too bad if you miss your bus. The James North Clock has been a quarter of an hour slow for at least the past fortnight.

How soon all these clocks get corrected to GMT is a matter of time.