Atomised

There are several atomic clock exact time websites, that you can google in an instant. Surprisingly, why should I be surprised what a cynic, yes they do show the same minutes and seconds, the same time. They may not show the same hour depending on what time zone they are for, of course.

Useful if you are a scientist timing an experiment or a sporty competitor stressfully timing a race, and you have a spare computer screen handy or perhaps most folks bring them up on their web connected mobiles. But when else in your life would you think you might have any need to look up the atomic pinpointed time?

How about, when see that the digital clock at the Ferrytoll park and ride bus station north of the Forth Bridge is 2 minutes fast? You see, as I did this evening, that while the clock is displayed to passengers, it appears to be being used to time bus departures too. Several buses itemised as departing at what that clock showed as their correct times but were in fact significantly earlier.

It explained the mystery of an absent and missed connection that I had clearly got there in time to catch, onto one of the town routes into east Dunfermline. The atomic clock sites were the confirmation I needed that it was not my time that was wrong, to know for a fact there was a clock fault to itemise to Stagecoach along with the early departures. But arriving just after working hours had ended on a Friday evening we can guess this will go on all weekend at least. Anyway, if you travel through the Ferrytoll, check your watch by the atomic clock websites before you go, and you can check on whether the clock there is still wrong, and complain about the effect on passengers if they don't fix it for their timekeeping.

That is when we need atomic clocks. When we are trying to keep transport running properly instead of lying down and accepting having it run any old how. It is also when we need a blog based in Edinburgh to write about Fife on. You notice that 2 successive posts here have been about Fife, but the now defunct aspie group that used to exist in Fife and became too controlled never chose to go for enough of a free speaking culture to have a blog, did it, you will remember? Even when that group was still going it was still us who served Fife for this democratically necessary voicing side of what should be all local aspie groups' life.

Maurice Frank