This is the Shepherd Gate Clock at Greenwich. Note the twenty-four hours. Wired to the "Shepherd Electric Impulse Clock" within, entrusted with cabling standardised time not just nationwide but eventually as far as Massachusetts thanks to the transatlantic cable, it was the first clock ever to directly show Greenwich Mean Time to the public, and is one of Louise Devoy's contributions to this week's Ships, Sea and the Stars. Actual Greenwich astronomer Ed Bloomer presents its sequel - the atomic clock, while psychologist Steve Taylor brings along a book he wrote and a child's safety seat for some reason, and the excellent Helen Czerski refuses to be fazed. I was asked if there was any good bit of Shakespeare relating to Time I could read, and immediately thought of this...
... but instead suggested something I've always loved but never performed from Henry the Sixth Part Three - an uncharasteristically trance-like meditation on routine from, as Helen perfectly summarises, "a slightly depressed king on a hill who just can't tell if he's a bit useless". Yes! Another one! Centering on another kind of shepherd's clock, it's one of the most sustainedly simple things Shakespeare wrote - one of the reasons I love it, and you can hear me read it at 2:50. Then Helen asked me to read the closing words to Einsteins' fourth paper on General Relativity, (28:30), and I really enjoyed that too. It's been far too long since I last performed words nobody's meant to understand. *
"You need to know how big your clock is."
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