A weird thing happened forty minutes ago (at least I think it's forty). I usually watch the BBC1 six o'clock news, which lasts for just under half an hour, when we get the weather forecast and then across to the regional news. (I'm sure you already know this, but bear with me, the timings are important, not least because the end of the weather is my Pablovian trigger to go and pour a G&T.)
Anyway, at 6.20, that's six twenty, Susan Powell was cued up to do the forecast, and George then handed us over to 'South Today'. I wouldn't have minded this, I am still capable of overriding pre-programmed synapses even at my age - maybe there was a party political or charity appeal coming up - except that George said, handing over to Sally Taylor: 'and now it's coming up to half past six, and it's time to hand over to ...'
I checked my watch. It's twenty past six. I checked several other time sources, which agreed. I switched off the TV, which was probably a mistake. The BBC has stolen ten minutes, I thought. I've just read 'Ghostwritten' by David Mitchell, which plays, amongst many others, with the idea that time is not necessarily absolute or sequential, according to the physics; which didn't help. But just for a moment there - and this is the good bit - I felt as if the ground, or the sky, or both, had tilted slightly as time momentarily slipped away.
Then I went and poured myself that gin.
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