Clocks used to be on everything.
Framed pictures, big radio's, even on the back plates of cookers. They were on the sides of buildings too and of course on everyone's wristwatches, which we all wore.
That's because when I was growing up people could tell the time.
You know, clock time using hands that moved in a circle and numbers around the clock face.
Not so now. Modern kids tell digital time but nothing else. Not clock time.
Gone are the knotty problems we had involving the location of the big hand at quarter to 3 or where both hands should be at midnight.
Now it's what numbers appear on the screen of the fitbit or the smartwatch and continual questions about what time is it if they can't afford fit and smart tech, which many kids can't.
I can imagine a time when a generation emerges which no long requires old style clocks at all and they no longer appear on, well, anywhere.
Like the TV and the landline telephone, that third cornerstone of domestic information is on the wane, as this generation boots out the technology of their Grandparents straight into the skip.
In the not-too-distant future no-one will ring up on the landline to tell you to watch the News on the telly as long as you check its 6pm on the star-shaped wall clock.
Is it just me or do you feel the ground beneath your feet beginning to weaken?
Never mind about clocks Woodsy, thanks to 'sat nav', we already have a generation who cannot read maps, and even those of us who can are losing the skill.
ReplyDeleteMish
of course, the decline of map reading. God help us if all satellites are taken out by a meteor storm!
DeleteI understand wearing a watch is beginning to go, too, now there are mobile phones with clocks. WE have a lovely old Edwardian wall clock (found in a skip and repaired), wouldn't be without its reassuring tick -a sound that presumably is also vanishing. Pity.
ReplyDeleteFitbits are in now Andy. Counting steps and tell the time too. Love the fact you rescued a clock from a skip. I do like the ticking of a clock but we don't have anything big enough to hear in our house. Yes, the ticking is reassuring. O know what you mean. Soothing.
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