Roger Moroney: The great challenge of time

Roger Moroney

I realise it is rather old fashioned in this highly computerised and digitalised day and age but I like a challenge.

Which is why the dear old video recorder (which still works perfectly well by the way) remains tucked on the little shelf atop the TV cabinet ... it's little glowing numerals always ready and willing to tell the time.

It is, however, up to me to ensure it tells the right time, because twice a year governmental legislation, which was first introduced, sort of, back in 1927, alters it without my permission, or the permission of the VCR.

So as I dash these words out the VCR is puzzled because it is unable to display the right time.

It is displaying the time of day it was back on April 3.

It is one hour adrift.

This is because I too have been left puzzled ... as to where I put the dear old instruction booklet after I last had it out six months ago to take an hour off what it had been showing.

I did that successfully, although we all know that many instruction booklets are put together by a company called Jibberish Inc so it did take some time.

In fact I think it took about an hour ... which was a tad ironic under the circumstances.

And so it has come to pass that the autumn and winter have turned their backs on us and spring, by virtue of the equinox which arrived on September 23 which saw the hours of daylight equal those of the night, is now well and truly here.

As is Daylight Saving, although many call it "summer time" but hey, let's not get too carried away just yet.

I certainly won't be getting my child-frightening shorts out until at least Labour Weekend.

I noted earlier that the first observation of Daylight Saving took place in 1927 but they kept tinkering with it over the following years, and in 1946 it was actually shelved ... until 1974 when they trialled it again and took it on the following year.

But it didn't suit everyone and during the '80s it got tinkered with a couple of times until, in 2006, after public opinion and involvement, it was put into the shape it is in today.

So then (for anyone puzzled about which way to turn the hands when the time comes) "spring forward" (an hour) and "fall (autumn) back" (an hour).

Which doesn't help me because in one part of the living room it is still the time it was on April 3.

But yes, I enjoy a challenge.

Which is why the VCR stays put.

Oh it still works, and works very well, but it has effectively been superseded by the DVD evolution and online access to pretty well everything ever visually created.

But it will stay there because it's the best puzzle I've ever had.

For while it is currently showing a time 59 minutes off what it should be (hey, what's a stray minute after six months) the challenge is for me to address and rectify that.

It is its own perplexing little time lord. I should call it Dr Panasonic.

The instruction booklet is somewhere, but like anything you intentionally go looking for you will never find it ... but you will find other things you'd previously mislaid and once unsuccessfully tried looking for.

Herein is another of life's intriguing puzzles.

In a fortnight's time, if I go looking for my library card I will come across the VCR instructions booklet.

And a week later I will be looking for the phone charger and, yep, I'll come across my library card.

I sort feel for the VCR, for it will be aware that over on the mantelpiece the clock is showing the right time, as is the one on the oven and the one on my wrist.

It is an hour out of step but, in the meantime, until I find my library card, which is probably tucked inside the VCR instruction booklet at the back of the drawer pinned under the phone charger, I will attach a small note to it.

"Just add one hour" it will read.

Failing that I'll simply give up because the way time seems to fly these days it'll be back on track in only six months.

Puzzle solved.