Time Please.

What the crackers is going on with the clocks in our house?

They are all different.

Is this the work of The Ministry?

No.

Its something far more sinister than that. It is the doings of The Lady.

"We're late!" I cry.
"No were not, the clock in the car is six and a half minutes fast." She says smugly.

"I can lie in." I declare.
"No, get up. The alarm clock is ten minutes slow."

"Why don't we just change them all to the correct time?" I say, my hand edging towards a timepiece.
"No, leave them." She snaps, "I like to feel that time is against me when I'm on my way to work and that I can't afford to have a lie in."

Its true, the lady is painfully punctual. Even on her days off, he first thing she does every day is rattle off a list of tasks, household duties and perhaps a few brief leisure activities packed into a detailed timetable. I have virtually a clinical aversion to numbers, sequences and timescales. They just seem so limiting.

For most people, time flows one way, and that's great for them, but rather restrictive in terms of insight. Time, being a dimension, is occurring concurrently, so it is perfectly possible to see into the past and the future, just as it is possible to see from side to side.

And so I spend most afternoons gently time-traveling. Of course I can't actually physically visit places - for a start I haven't got the right shoes - and I can't actually change anything either. I can't get the lottery numbers because I've been in to the future and I know I don't win. I can't tell anyone what's going to happen to them because in the future I become terribly introverted and never call them anymore.

It's not much use really.

Other, less enlightened people, call it day dreaming.

My girlfriend says I spend far too much time doing this.

You see, she changes the clocks so she can monopolise time itself. If she is the only one that understands just exactly where we are at any given point, is it any wonder that I spend my days drifting about?

She just tells me I am lazy.

She then informs me that I am late and hands me a timetable of chores.