3 October: Clocks

 October is National clock month, so here are some facts about clocks:

1. The word clock derives from the medieval Latin word for “bell”, clogga. Strictly speaking, the word clock should only be used to describe a device that has some sort of bell or striking mechanism that sounds after a set period of time, usually on the house or quarter hour. If it doesn’t have a bell or a chime, it should be called a timepiece. However, in general usage today, a "clock" refers to any device for measuring and displaying the time.
2. Everyone knows that the words “clockwise” and “anticlockwise” come from the direction in which the hands move on a clock face. But why do they move that way? Before there were clocks, people used sundials to tell the time, so when clocks were invented, in the Northern Hemisphere, the inventors decided the hands should move in the same direction as a sundial, because people were familiar with that. Which raises the question, before clocks were invented, how did people express the concepts of clockwise and anticlockwise? They used the terms sunwise and widdershins.
3. Who invented the clock? There’s a story that Galileo Galilei fist came up with the idea of measuring time with a pendulum while in church, observing a swinging lantern. The invention of the pendulum clock however is credited to Christiaan Huygens in 1656. His invention was the most accurate device for measuring time, up to that point. It only deviated by 15 seconds a day.
4. The oldest clock in the world still working is the Salisbury Cathedral Clock which dates back to 1386. The oldest astronomical clock, that is, one that shows the positions of heavenly bodies as well as the time, is in Prague and dates to 1410.
5. When we say, it’s something o’clock, that is a contraction of “stroke of the clock”, which people said in order to specify they were getting the time from a striking clock rather than from a sundial. Over the years, it got shortened to “o’clock”.
6. The alarm clock was invented by an American named Levi Hutchins in 1787. Before that, there were people called knocker uppers whose job it was to go round and pound on people’s doors to get them up for work. Which begs the question, how did the knocker upper know when it was time to get up for work? Anyway, Levi’s alarm clock was a little limited in that it only went off at 4am, the time he needed to get up for work. It was 60 years before French inventor Antoine Redier made one that could be adjusted.
7. In the late 18th century Great Britain imposed a hefty tax on every clock in use, even in private homes. It was known as the “Parliament Clock Tax”. It wasn’t popular, especially not among clockmakers, many of whom went out of business because people stopped buying clocks. Which goes to show the UK government has a long history of badly thought out, unworkable policies that result in businesses going bust, which continues to this day. Back then, though, unlike today, politicians were willing to admit they were wrong, so within a year, the tax was removed.
8. A pendulum clock which is accurate at sea level will lose time if taken to a high altitude. This is due to changes in gravity.
9. In China, the word for clock is “sòng zhōng”, which is pronounced the same as the word for “terminating” or “end”. Hence is is very bad form in China to give a clock as a gift, because it signifies the end of a relationship or even the recipient’s life, since clocks are often associated with funerals.
10. An artist called Siren Elise Wilhelmsen has designed a clock which, as its parts move throughout the year, will knit you a scarf.

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

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