Time to kill...

I hate it when the clocks change. There are a number of reasons for this. The most important is that because I never change my bedside alarm from Irish Wintertime, until last Sunday I would have been buried in my scratcher content in the knowledge that I had another hour in the pit to prepare myself emotionally, and in other ways, to face the fresh hell that is a new day in the world of Where Angels Fear.

Instead, I find myself up and about before the under-houseboy has had time to bring me my second cup of Kenyan Peaberry and pounding the keys on the old Toshiba in the vain hope of amusing a small but select group of fellow anoraks out there on t'interweb . It won't do I tell you.

But this is a mere selfish whimsy. And here comes another one. For me, the changing of the clocks is inevitably marked by a strange sense of dissociation from reality.

For a week after the change I find myself existing in the middle of a Half Man Half Biscuit song in which almost the only conversations I hear and overhear from friends, over-familiar servants, toadies, lackeys, and old ladies at bus stops consist of moans about how the change affects them:

'Oh I feel so tired all the time'
'Oh I can't get to sleep'
'Oh I can't wake up.'
'Yes but it's worth it for the lighter evenings, the kids can play out.'
'And it's better in the morning too, not going to work in the dark'
'Oh I hate that, going out when it's dark, coming home when it's dark, you don't feel like you've had a day.'
'Oh you're so right, Alice.'

Fuck off the lot of yez. I feel like I've just flown back from Tokyo via Seattle in a single hop. Do you think I could possibly care whether the kids can play out or you can take the dog for a walk without fear of being interfered with? If you don't stop this bi-annual prattle fest, I shall unleash the awesome power of the small thermonuclear device I carry about my person at all times.

Does nobody care? It's just me, me, me all the time in this life.