Tempus? f** it!

Slept way past sunrise then it turned wet and cold so opted for a cosy, warm indoor blip today.

I was reading somewhere about China's new GPS system and remembered the fears about what would happen if the American/European GPS/sat nav system failed for a while (due to unusually high levels of radiation from the sun - it does that from time to time you know, showing no consideration for us here on the third lump of rock).

The fear is not that we would have to navigate our own way to our sister's boyfriend's cousin's neighbour's house without a safety net but that all the money, stocks and shares trading that goes on all day every day would stop without it's timekeeper, the signal from the GPS system, ticking away the thousandths of seconds to time all the deals.

How much simpler then when this mechanical wonder was around. Only one hand (who needed any smaller units of time than hours - even church clocks that timed the quarter hour were seen as a bit hasty) and a flying pendulum that winds and unwinds its thin little chain to regulate the slow release of the steel spring's energy through the wooden gears.
It's accurate to about 2 hours a day, stops completely if the humidity gets too high and slows down when it gets too dusty.

Now there's a pace of life that suits me just fine.