Summer: Time

A few weeks ago, towards the beginning of August, the world-famous and iconic London clock, Big Ben, was prepared for a major undertaking of cleaning and repairs. Taking a week, this process removed six years’ worth of grime from the huge clock’s four faces, as well as allowing for a few minor repairs to the external glasswork.

Before the work could begin, the familiar “bongs” of the clock’s bell were silenced, and the clock’s hands were brought, shortly before 9am, to the twelve noon position. As I watched the hands speeding around, it was difficult to avoid thinking that I was witnessing some sort of science fiction moment of time speeding forward. Maybe a cartoon-like symbol to indicate the passage of time, or a War of the Worlds style loss of control of the parameters of the familiar.

And yet, is the accelerated spinning of the hands of an iconic clock really all that far removed from what is happening around us, every day? We are all wishing, planning, measuring our lives away. Sitting in a local café towards the end of July, enjoying my favourite Zen tea, I overheard a fellow-customer shouting her latest news across the room to a friend she’d spotted in the queue.

“I’ve done it! I’ve booked my holiday. Two weeks – Florida – Disney – flights, hotel, the whole lot. The kids will love it – hell, who cares about them? Jack and I will love it! We leave on 6th July. I can’t wait. Only eleven months to go…”

Another of my favourite local establishments for a quiet cup of coffee recently put up this advert: “Only 18 weeks to Christmas. Why not try our turkey, ham, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich?” Admittedly, perhaps this recipe could be interpreted as a commentary on the unseasonably cold and wet weather that so-called summer morning. Still… although Christmas can be something to look forward to, should we really be starting the build-up of anticipation of mid-winter festivities in August? Within a week of seeing this suggestion, I saw “just in!” Christmas air-fresheners on sale in Belfast. On the day on which the A level results were issued, a local card shop had removed all its “Congratulations on your exam results” cards. Was this a vote of no confidence in our local candidates… or was it to make way for the impending arrival of the 2007 Christmas cards? After all, the 2008 calendars have been in the window now for a month.

Visiting Dublin in the first week of July, I noticed “Back to school” special offers in several of the main department stores in the city centre. Indeed, in the last few weeks of June I’d heard “Back to school” themed adverts on local radio, making me feel bad for those looking forward to the much anticipated summer break, only to have the spectre of the return to bells and timetables tap them on the shoulder with a ghostly finger of doom, just as the anticipation began to resemble reality.

I remember – as all of us who are alarmed at the speed at which we are growing older can – the days of childhood. When a special occasion passed, perhaps a birthday, or Christmas with all the family, or the packing up and going home at the end of a summer holiday, we’d always say, “I can’t wait till next year.” That wait seemed like eternity. The nine weeks of the summer holiday seemed like forever; the year from one birthday, or one Christmas, to another, was unimaginable. Now, though, it really does seem as though we actually “can’t wait”. Is it that we’re tired of waiting – postponing the instant gratification which, if we only thought about it, would be so much sweeter if seasoned with a little patience? We have to have the turkey, ham and stuffing – and we can’t wait for December, because we want it now – have to have it now? Or is it that our lives have got so busy that our days whiz by like the spinning hands of Big Ben on that morning in mid-August? Is it not so much that we can’t wait, as that time can’t wait for us?

But can time speed up? Surely it’s a scientific impossibility for time to pass more quickly in the C21st century than it did when we were younger? There are those who would delight in making this an elaborate conspiracy theory, a tale of governments accelerating time to get more work, more tax and fewer demands from all of us – but maybe it’s much simpler than that. Maybe it’s we who are making time fly faster, ever faster. Maybe with our planning and organising and scheduling, with our 6:30am spin classes and our Sky+ schedules, our multi-tasking driving with our Bluetooth, hands-free phones and our complete make-up collections in our glove compartments, our packed weekends and our holidays booked far in advance – we’re making our own clock hands circle at a science fiction pace.

As for Big Ben? Its four dials were cleaned by teams of cleaners dressed in red, who abseiled slowly down the faces. It was a slow, painstaking and dangerous task, with the expert abseilers held steady by ropes, 315 feet from the ground, and having to take account of the wind directions in deciding which face to work on at a given time. In a close-up photo, the red overalls, the features, and the cleaning tools are clearly seen; in the distance, the men looked like tiny, dark silhouetted figures against the black and white clock faces.

As our time speeds past, our appointments and our plans and our aspirations, the things we look forward to and the things we dread, are all important to us and to those we care about. Viewed from a distance, we are all just tiny silhouetted figures, set precariously against a background of the impassive accuracies of time.


Originally written August 2007