Tick, tock: it’s time for speaking clock try-outs

There will be auditions, of course, as BT begins the search for a new voice for its speaking clock. An anonymous informant, calling from a phone box just outside Okehampton and on a crackly line, tells me that the selection process could even be turned into a hit TV show called Britain’s Got

the Time. The winner will be a huge celebrity, so the competition is going to be fierce. You might suppose that the speaking clock has a rather niche audience, since so many of our other devices are keen to tell us the time, but the BT speaking clock still gets 12 million calls a year, apparently. I’m told that some exciting ideas are being kicked round the marketing department. Instead of waiting to be called, the speaking clock may become “pro-active” and start cold-calling people at home to tell them the time. There may also be a prize draw in which we are telephoned in the dead of night and asked to guess what the time is, to the nearest 10 seconds.

Right now, people all over the country are thinking themselves into the role of a clock, trying dozens of different intonations for the word “precisely” and asking themselves, “What is my motivation?”

I understand that about 1,000 candidates for the job have decided to put on a Geordie accent and nearly as many are adopting the method acting approach, living in watch repair shops to get the feel of the part, so the speaking clock may soon become the agonised mumbling clock. The noted Shakespearean actor Wilfred Stoke-D’Abernon intends to take on the part of a grandfather clock, adopting a booming delivery and giving the time after the boings.

At the audition, every candidate will be required to “do” the time of 8.48 and 20 seconds; and, following this, they must recite a piece of their own choice. Some will perform the time signal pips, while others will choose a lift theme and announce “doors closing” in a way that is firm, yet non-threatening. If you are planning to take part in the auditions, for goodness’ sake turn up on time. Messages of support for Jeremy Corbyn have been flooding in since his experience on a Virgin train last week. Sitting on the floor is, after all, an impeccably socialist thing to do. The Sedentary Socialist Alliance points out that the Labour leader was following in the traditions of Bertrand Russell and some of the great CND sit-down protests, and of the memorable and heroic university sit-ins of the Sixties, not to mention the Greenham Common women.

In coming weeks we can expect to see a number of mass sit-down campaigns in favour of re-nationalising the railways, as the Sedentary Socialist Alliance combines with the Progressive Posterior movement, the militant Principled Fundaments and the Marxist-Leninist Derrières. There are fears in some Labour circles that the campaign will be hijacked by extremist groups, such as the anarchist Smash All Chairs Brigade. They are expecting a great groundswell of support from students, who invariably sit on the floor by choice, and from tourist backpackers who visit the country at this time of the year and like to sit on the pavement if they can’t find a suitable monument to perch on. The more intellectual wing of the sedentary movement will take the opportunity to sit on the floors of bookshops while they browse. Forward-looking yoga groups also intend to sit down and be counted. I understand that the Socialist Women’s Meditation Collective has come up with a new yoga position, called the Jeremy, which helps to achieve a hitherto unknown level of serenity. Nature Notes: a slug has recently taken to sneaking into our living room in the middle of the night. Next day we find the glittering pattern of its dried-up slime. The shapes it leaves are puzzling; it seems, at first sight, to lurch about aimlessly or drunkenly, but I can’t help wondering if there is actually a purpose behind these wanderings.

Could they be hieroglyphs relating to a centuries-old slug culture or religion? Are they a cry for help? Perhaps they are a sign that man’s great enemy, the slug, wants to make peace and is trying to warn us about the awful consequences of climate change. When I look more closely at the sparkling trail it seems to consist of a series of ebullient loops, suggesting some form of gastropod ballroom dancing. I stand, poised to scatter a handful of salt, but then I think: could this be one of the few surviving examples of the rare Viennese Waltzing Slug?