Advertising time

I'm not going to waste words on the six monthly question about why we put clocks backwards and forwards in a world where time is what watches and clocks say it is, and where many people regard the position of the sun in the sky as irrelevant. But, instead, I'm going to think about something else - how we hear about time.

Today was one of those days when time moves around: the clocks went back an hour, and so for several days, my internal clock will think that it is later than it is. Eventually I will get back in sync, but it always jarrs for a while. But today was rather more jarring than usual. I'm sure that I'm not unusual in that I use 'The Speaking Clock' very infrequently - three times a year, actually. Every time the clock moves backwards or forwards, just to check I've got the direction correct, and on the 31st of December, as midnight approaches, for the often overlooked reason that digital TV is not live, but is delayed by several seconds, and so the New Year actually starts before digital television says it has.

But today was a simple 'confirm the direction you've moved the clocks' check, and was mere routine. At least, that's how it started. But the voice was wrong, and it said something different, and I had to stop and listen several times before I realised that TIM, the UK's Speaking Clock, the subject of careful choice of voice for all of my lifetime, and long before that, had been replaced with the voice of an American accented girl who joyfully told me that she was 'Tinkerbell', and then told me the time. Somehow the handset and my hand stayed in contact with each other, but my jaw fell a long way.

After a little research, it seems that the UK's Speaking Clock is now sponsored by Disney for three months as advertising for a new film. I have to say that I'm more than a little intrigued. From what I remember of the book, isn't the fairy in question a malicious, jealous, spiteful, (and fictional!) trouble-maker, who is prone to using colourful language? I think there's more than a little 'spin' going on here...

(I note that this news has provoked many comments in the online world, which is strange given that online users probably need to hear the time spoken out to them as little as, or even less than, myself!)