“Just waiting for some idiot to change the time”
You’ve not long to wait:
An EU directive, due to be introduced in 2020, proposes reorganising the calendar and clock to a more user-friendly decimal system. There will be 100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour, 100 hours in a day and 10 days in each of ten months making up year. As well as making it easier to calculate dates and times, the system has the added advantage of giving busy people more hours in the day (although there will be far fewer of them). The months will retain their current names but July and August will be excluded from the calendar.
As a result there will be a number of minor adjustments needed:
• People currently working nine till five will work from approximately half past 37 until 71 o’clock. Unfortunately as the Earth rotates on its axis in just under a quarter of a New Day there will be a number of sunrises and sunsets daily.
• Anyone with a birthday in July or August must apply for a new birth certificate from a specially formed new department in Brussels.
• The Men’s 100 metres world record will be adjusted to around 27 New Seconds (there being 10,000 New Seconds in a New Hour instead of the current 3,600).
• France will close for annual holidays from June 1st to September 10th inclusive, resuming on October 1st.
• In the first year of the new arrangements Easter will fall on February 3rd, August Bank Holiday will e on May 6th and Christmas will fall on December 29th. After that it’s anybody’s guess but after a suitable period of “bedding in” public holidays across the EU will be standardised and lists published annually.
• Public Holidays will consist of 6.5 New Hours off work
• The continent's entire railway system will have to close for 9.6 New Hours every 2.3 New Days to give drivers the time to learn the latest timetables.
• The radio programme “Just a Minute” will be rename “Just 87.6 New Seconds”. Nicholas Parsons will still preside and the programme will be followed by numerous episodes of “I’m Sorry haven’t a clue” live from Brussels (or Strasbourg, depending where the EU is currently sitting).
:-) :-)