Witching hour minus one
When I was ickle we used to go swimming on a Sunday, and one day at this time of year we turned up an hour early for the pool. So no Siobhan, I think the clock change has always been on a Sunday. ;-)
But in those halcyon days of youth, it often didn't matter what time it was at the weekend, time was something Grown Ups were concerned with, and the fact that the clocks had changed didn't kick-in until Monday morning and the call for school.
On several occasions as a Grown Up I've actually been denied the pleasure of a lie-in on this day. One of the ancient computer systems at the place where I work isn't clever enough to know the difference between GMT and BST. So it doesn't like it when the time suddedly jumps back an hour, and things appear to be happening before things that have already occured. By "things" I mean stuff like "person feeling a bit peaky" and "person dropping down dead". Paradoxes like that can really screw with a computer's noggin and make it go a bit HAL.
So one of my jobs was to go into work at 1AM and shut down the system, which was a bit like stopping a nuclear power station. Then wait around for a hour for 2AM (when the clocks jump back to 1AM) and wake the whole thing up again. As far as the computer's concerned the clock change never happened, as far as I'm concerned I'm two hour's kip down on a one-hour-extra-in-bed deal.
But these days it's all done with wires and bits of string, so I'm free to go to halloween parties as a PVC witch and awake freshed faced the next morning to blog about it for you.
Which I will do at some point, I promise, I'm just gonna be a bit busy today. I've got to get from Derby to Reading via King's Lynn and March by tea-time.
March the place, not March the month. I've had enough time travel for one day.
But in those halcyon days of youth, it often didn't matter what time it was at the weekend, time was something Grown Ups were concerned with, and the fact that the clocks had changed didn't kick-in until Monday morning and the call for school.
On several occasions as a Grown Up I've actually been denied the pleasure of a lie-in on this day. One of the ancient computer systems at the place where I work isn't clever enough to know the difference between GMT and BST. So it doesn't like it when the time suddedly jumps back an hour, and things appear to be happening before things that have already occured. By "things" I mean stuff like "person feeling a bit peaky" and "person dropping down dead". Paradoxes like that can really screw with a computer's noggin and make it go a bit HAL.
So one of my jobs was to go into work at 1AM and shut down the system, which was a bit like stopping a nuclear power station. Then wait around for a hour for 2AM (when the clocks jump back to 1AM) and wake the whole thing up again. As far as the computer's concerned the clock change never happened, as far as I'm concerned I'm two hour's kip down on a one-hour-extra-in-bed deal.
But these days it's all done with wires and bits of string, so I'm free to go to halloween parties as a PVC witch and awake freshed faced the next morning to blog about it for you.
Which I will do at some point, I promise, I'm just gonna be a bit busy today. I've got to get from Derby to Reading via King's Lynn and March by tea-time.
March the place, not March the month. I've had enough time travel for one day.
I'm going to play the "Maybe we did things differently in Ireland" card - even if it isn't true ;-)
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