City spokesperson clarifies the capital is one hour ahead of itself until further notice
LONDON – In a press conference that began on time, ran late, and yet somehow finished early, City Hall confirmed Thursday that London is currently observing British Summer Time, placing it precisely one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and approximately forty years behind its own railway timetables.
The clarification came after thousands of overseas visitors typed what time is in london england now into their phones and received what officials described as “the correct answer, which is unbearable to everyone.”
One hour ahead, eternally behind
“Right now London runs on BST, which is GMT plus one,” explained a fictional spokesman from the Department of Chronological Affairs, a body we invented for the purpose of this sentence. “In winter we revert to GMT, the time zone we personally invented at the Royal Observatory Greenwich and then spent two centuries telling the rest of the planet to copy. Frankly, the world owes us a thank-you card.”
Visitors seeking the live answer were directed to the official world clock, where they discovered that the time in London is, against all expectation, simply the time in London.
A nation that ran the clock and lost the plot
Historians note the irony. The country that standardised time for the entire British Empire now cannot agree whether the pub closes at eleven, half eleven, or whenever the landlord feels emotionally ready. A poll conducted by an institute that does not exist found that 71 percent of Londoners check the time, sigh, and check it again twelve seconds later.
“People ask me the time and I tell them, and they look at me like I have personally inconvenienced them,” said a man near Waterloo who may have been a clock. “That is the London experience. We gave you the meridian. The least you can do is wear a watch.”
The clocks last leapt forward in spring and will fall back in autumn, an arrangement the government describes on its own clock-change page as “settled,” and which every single household describes as “the reason the oven is wrong from October to whenever I remember.”
At time of publication, it was still later than you think.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
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