Th'owd Case Clock...

....is a Lancashire dialect poem by Sam Fitton which includes the following lines:

"It stood i’ th’ corner, so I’m towd
When first I coom to live i’ th’ fowd
It stons theer yet, an’ neet an’ day.
It measures time an’ ticks away –
“Tick, tock; tick, tock".

And I am so pleased the Godfather asked me to find a home for his case clock now he has moved to set up home at Haslingden Hall. There is something rather splendid about its chimes and much to my surprise it does not provoke Teapot like the beeping breadmaker.

You may think Timelords and clocks have a certain empathy. And you would be right. There must be at least 7 clocks of various kinds in the Tardis and all tell a different time. Then there is my watch which has a mind of its own because it needs a new battery and I don't seem to find the time to go and buy one.

None of this really matters until those time critical events in the day.... the dash to the train to go to work and then to come home again.

Something in my DNA rebels against waiting for trains.... .....and even more so at the end of the day when the waiting is at that architectural masterpiece called New Street Station. I am sure people jump on the first train to appear at the platform never mind where it is going just to get out of the place.

So timing the point of departure from the Tardis in the morning or the power down of the laptop and the exit from 55 Colmore Row in the evening have been honed to a fine art over the years.

Entering the back entrance to the station and finding the previous train delayed by 5 minutes just so that I can catch it equals happiness, joy and delight. However if the train I'm trying to catch is delayed 10 minutes or more then misery and despair hangs over me as I wait for the tannoy to announce its approach usually when it is about 3 light years from the station. Time the great dictator.

If only I could remember how to fix the Tardis ........

Have I unplugged my straighteners.....

....said Mrs FLN as we were about to set off for church this morning. I looked at her with a sort of Mr Spock look, wondering if this was another hangover from Tin Lid's hen night the previous day.But I was soon put right and learnt this was something to do with her hair??.

A glimpse into a mystery about which we men have only the faintest notion.

And perhaps it is best that it is so. As with so many things of the fair sex. I remember walking on the other side of the road across from a shop when I was last in Lancashire with the title "Nail Bar" across the window. As I approached the door wondering if I could buy half a pound of 1 " I soon appreciated this was not the latest name for an ironmongers.

Innocents abroad.

The medieval torture chamber had nothing on some of the implements employed in days gone by if Teapot is to be believed. Curling tongs? What were they when they were at home? Heated rollers were bliss I am told?? And perms.........this is one mental blank I have no desire to see filled.

I content myself with the thought that I managed to go to work for a whole week without combing my hair the other month as I had misplaced (lost) my comb and was too mean to buy another one. Or rather I knew it would turn up sometime as duly it did!

And no one seemed to spot the difference.

On this week in history....

....was the title of a piece which appeared on the wallpaper of our PCs and laptops in the office this week.

This week Elizabeth I was born on 7 September 1533, the London blitz began on 7 September 1940, and the Beatles performed their last TV show on 11 September. And in our time the Twin Towers of the World Trade centre in New York were destroyed by aircraft hijacked by terrorists on 11 September 2001.

It gave me a peculiar feeling especially as there was nothing for 10 September. And 10 September is of course the day in 2006 when FLN and El Pasto were killed on the M6 motorway. Not world shattering may be but world shattering for us.

So Teapot and me went off to Willesley Wood in the National Forest to see the place where the Woodland Trust had planted an oak tree in memory of FLN paid for by my chums in the office at Christmas 2006. The picture is of an oak tree in the wood.

We listened hyptonised to the Channel 4 programme last Sunday about the telephone messages left by office workers in the Twin Towers and firecrew as they tried to reach them before their collapse. How wives girlfriends and families hold onto those messages and play them again. One family only had the itemised bill of the last calls that awful morning.

We understand that holding on only too well. Teapot still has FLN's texts and short videos shot by mobile phone or camcorder of him in Yosemite, the Lake District and in his garden in Erdington. They are timeless and feed our memories.

We re-read his blog on Thursday evening, and it reminded me time does not stand still because in the unyielding logic of cyberspace FLN is now 33 years old.

Perhaps cyberspace has a point. Although we cannot see him and share his life he and El Pasto now enjoy life in that place which Jesus went to prepare for those who love him and which is beyond the mind of man to figure out.

And that is really world shattering.......