The Time Machines.

If ever I was reminded of just what a pathetic, grasping materialist I am it was last night, when I put the clocks back an hour for winter time.

Ok, strictly speaking the clocks weren't due to change until something like 4am today but I am an anally retentive Virgoan and I alter them earlier and earlier each year – it’s a disease with me.

I pout and pour scorn on the age of materialism regularly on this Blog and decry the consumer society and those who adhere to it. Then, when I come to alter the clocks, I realise just what a hypocrite I am.

Gone are the days when father used to ceremoniously open the glass face on the grandfather clock in the hall and then move the minute hand clockwise or anti-clockwise a full rotation before closing the case and climbing the stairs, candle in hand, nightcap on head, ready for six months in a new time zone.

Pither, the shallow hoarder of meaningless consumer trinkets, yesterday evening had to alter:



….His watch.
The clock in the kitchen.
The oven clock.
The clock on the microwave oven.
The clock on the TV in the kitchen.
The central heating timer.
The timer on the hall light.
The time on the phone/answermachine.
The timer in the garage on the fish pond lights.
The timer in the garage on the back security light.
The clock in the car.
The clock in the study.
The alarm clock in my bedroom.
The back-up alarm clock in my bedroom.
The TV in my bedroom.
The TV in the spare bedroom.
The timer on the fish tank in the spare bedroom.
The alarm clock in the spare bedroom.
The video recorder in the lounge.
The DVD/video tape converter in the lounge.
The timer on the fish tank in the lounge.
The time on my mobile phone.
This computer’s clock.



The irony of the whole situation is that, doing a job which involves me keeping my eye on the time every second of every minute of every hour in order to meet recurring deadlines, the last thing I want to be reminded of away from the office is the time!! My hatred of “knowing the time” has led me in the last few years to abandon my watch the moment I get home and not put it back on until I have to go back to work. If I’m on holiday that can be two weeks without a watch and without any care of what time it is. I find the sun and the moon give me sufficient information.

How many of these non-biodegradable pieces of soon-to-be landfill cluttering up my home and charting my inexorable march towards the grave do I actually need, I ask myself?

Like every dumb clutz across the nation, however, I still work up this morning, looked at the clock and thought……..”Ah! I’ve got another hour in bed.”