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What a waste of a lunch hour. I spent nearly all of it stuck inside a clock shop. For a place that sells time, they sure do steal a lot of it. Someone should look into their operation. After queuing for twenty minutes I finally got to the front, slammed my clock on the counter and said ‘I’m not happy.’

‘What seems to be the problem?’ asked the man wearing a tie with three clocks on it – one for London, one for Tokyo and one for New York.

‘Well I bought this clock from you yesterday and it’s stopped working.’

‘Did you have it on all day?’ he said.

‘Of course, that’s the whole point.’

‘Well that’s your problem right there.’ he said. ‘It’s a 24 hour clock.’

‘But I don’t want a clock that only lasts for a day. I want one that will last forever.’ I cried.

He lifted up a box from beneath the counter and said ‘You’ll need a digital one then. We’ve got an offer on at the moment – two for one on all digital clocks.’

‘I don’t need two. I need one. One clock.’

‘Say no more.’ he said and slipped me a floppy disc. The queue was getting restless.

‘What the hell is this?’ I asked, looking at the disc.

‘Well you’ll need to upload it first, but I can assure you that will one will last forever. Never needs winding either.’

‘But it’s on a floppy disc. My computer doesn’t even have a drive for that anymore.’

‘Yeah, we don’t sell many of these. Most modern computers come with clocks already built in these days.'

The line of people waiting to return items was beginning to resemble a mob. Somehow a couple of them had managed to find flaming torches. 'Please hurry up.' one of them shouted 'My windup clock keeps telling me it's time to die.'

The man with the three-clocked tie took no notice of the chaos unfolding in his shop. 'Maybe I can interest you in this watch instead.' he said. 'There’s 25% off all watches at the moment.’

‘But it only goes up to nine o’clock!’ I yelled. My patience was long lost. ‘Just give me a clock that will last more than a day, goes all the way up to midnight and doesn’t live inside a floppy disc.’

‘I have just the one for you, sir.’ he said, taking the shop’s own clock off the wall. ‘I’ll even throw in this travel clock for free, but I must warn you that it only works on planes and trains. We’re working on a boat one, but hour engineers aren’t optimistic that it can be done. That’ll be £9.99.’

I paid the man and began to leave. As I was nearing the door he shouted out ‘Don’t
forget, the clocks go back tomorrow night.’

‘I know.’ I replied.

‘Good.’ he said ‘We’ll be around at about two to pick them up.’

Jason, Clapham.