[time-nuts] Simon Winchester: The Perfectionists
Poul-Henning Kamp
phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Tue May 8 07:48:52 UTC 2018
--------
In message <20180508073640.64E7240605C at ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net>, Hal Mu
rray writes:
>about the clocks in Oxford chiming midnight in friendly disagreement.
Terry Prachett has a lovely description of how the clocks of Ank-Morpork
chimes in "Men At Arms":
Noon in Ankh-Morpork took some time, since twelve o'clock
was established by consensus. Generally, the first bell to
start was that one in the Teachers’ Guild, in response to
the universal prayers of its members. Then the water clock
on the Temple of Small Gods would trigger the big bronze
gong. The black bell in the Temple o Fate struck once,
unexpectedly, but by then the silver pedal-driven carillon
in the Fools’ Guild would be tinkling, the gongs, bells and
chimes of all the guilds and temples would be in full swing,
and it was impossible to tell them apart, except for the
tongueless and magical octiron bell of Old Tom in the Unseen
University clock tower, whose twelve measured silences
temporarily overruled the din.
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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