Changing the clocks this weekend: Motoring Non-motoring forum

Non-motoring > Changing the clocks this weekend	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Aretas	Replies: 21

View Threaded

Wed 27 Mar 13 18:15

Changing the clocks this weekend - Aretas

I wrote the following about a year ago. Thought it could do with a wider audience:

Have I got an unusual house? We have 25 clocks to alter and several more that do it all by themselves. First, the heating. Important and easy but many more need a handbook (with a good index) and/or a torch plus a degree of patience. My cheap but complex digital watch requires a button push combination that is only done twice a year, so how an earth am I expected to remember the details? Two long-case clocks are simplicity itself in March, but in October have to be stopped for an hour and if you leave it longer it takes ages to manually wind through the strike as you go past the hour. Why does the telephone “calls” button have to be pressed twice in succession as part of its time/date process? (BT will automatically update the time if I pay them money. Perhaps I am a control freak). Thankfully my wife and I have identical mobiles so once one is mastered the second one is easy. I have set the menus to “update automatically” but they never do. The towel rail is electric and the timer (in the bedroom) needs careful adjustment so that my wife gets a warm towel and I don’t get woken by the click when it comes on. The bedside clock-radio ought to be easy but because it sits in a dark corner and is connected to loudspeaker and aerial cables the black raised lettering on the black plastic background has to be read upside down. A torch is useful here. To set the time on one car involves switching on its radio and rotating the tuning knob. The other car is simpler but wants to show me the date as well as the time. I know what the date is – just go away. Oh, the kitchen. The microwave oven has a clock that is easy to see when preparing food so it has to be set correctly and it is simple to do. However its mate, the oven, has a time setting button push combination that is the most unintuitive imaginable and is important to do correctly as I don’t want the oven to switch itself on at 3am. And it has to be synchronised with the microwave so it doesn’t matter which one you look at when switching on the radio to catch the weather forecast. Then there are three small hi-fi’s – in the lounge, office and workshop. One needs switching on and buttons pushing (for greater than 3 seconds) on its front panel. Another is adjusted when it is off, using its remote control. The third has to be switched on before the remote will do its job. It is easy to forget to do the cameras but important as holiday photos with an incorrect time setting will confuse you utterly when you look through them in a year’s time. Lots of other analogue clocks to make up the 25. A friend says that his satnav is an irritation to set. Only had one for a few months and never considered its clock. Just switched it on and (bless!) it did it all by itself.