RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29913, 29 August 1962, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

TIME MARCHES IN

One of the things to wonder about, as the Commonwealth Games at Perth draw nigh, is the extraordinary accuracy of the time-pieces needed today to measure the record - b reakers. The passion for measuring time, however, has existed, since the beginning of time. The primitives used the sun, moon and stars and. as time marched on, graduated to the sun dial, hourglass. water-clock, calibrated candles and the like. All the best adventure stories have castaways. who, as soon as they have recovered from a 10-mile swim through shark-infested water, reach for a stick in which to cut notches to mark the passage of time. Prisoners doing time

has been known to have it hanging so heavily on their hands that they have whittled elaborate wooden clocks which record time in all its forms, even to phases of the moon. About 250 years ago accurate time was so highly regarded that a young Yorkshireman thrust the famed pudding in the background and to take time off to qualify for a £20,000 prize. He invented the chronometer and was • probably the forerunner of the man who, from time to time, repairs our s recalcitrant time-pieces i and who owns the type i of car we could have , bought had it not been i for watch and clock re- > pairs. f Everyone is conscious of time. To capture a tense » moment, a writer will

say that time stood still. The peer and poke typist will labour away at "now is the time for all good men," etc. Serviceman's reunions may be identified by the number of people saving, at the same time, "Remember the time when . . ." Children are rebuked by being told there is a time and place for everything. Procrastination is met with “time and tide wait for no man.’’ Regularly, those who wish to follow this line of research personally may hear the dread words. "Time gentlemen, please.” The time has come to put a stop to this rather pointless dissertation, because a pointless dessertation is something for which we are not supposed to have time. <