Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Previous columns have dealt with the vexing questions of timewarps, the change from daylight saving to Night Dark Wasting, and the proliferation of road cones. Is there a connection…an Axis of Evil at play here?

No, but it made a reasonable intro. Here's some recent feedback from readers:

Hi Brian, What a wonderful column you wrote in April 1 issue, read soggily when it had partly dried out on Sunday (perhaps if the paper deliverer had pushed it fully in the box it may have remained dry).

However, I feel that it's important to point out several factual errors relating to the change in the Earth's inertia due to moving clock backward at 3am.

Firstly, clocks which are mounted on the wall will tend to push downwards as the hand is moved upwards. This will have the interesting effect of moving the planet in its orbit around the sun, and as the change will occur in the same place orbitally in succession, and as it will push the Earth towards the sun (as it happens at night-time), this will mean we will move closer to the sun and hence increase global warming; and, to retain inertia, which cannot be lost, it will also speed up the Earth thereby reducing the length of each year and ultimately getting rid of that inconvenient extra day in February every fourth year.

This will be popular with my watch, which is now a day behind after 29 February.
Perhaps it has made the change already. However, this relies on every country on Earth reverting to Night Dark Wasting time at the same time orbitally, which probably doesn't occur. If they can't decide on trivial things like trade and refugee issues, it's hardly likely that everyone will have agreed upon something so Earth shattering as changing times from DLST to NDWT.

The other major issue is that probably the majority of time-keeping mechanisms are now digital and therefore rely on the passage of electrons through conductors to keep and change time. Now electrons are very light compared with the hands of non-digital timepieces, but as there a far more digital timekeepers the effect is likely to be the same. The problem arises when it is considered that the orientation of these digital mechanisms is probably random, whereas for non-digital wall clocks they will (usually) be vertical. This will mean the effect of these electrons is also random and therefore unpredictable. It would be statistically possible that they could all be oriented to take us back into the middle of last century, and while this is considered unlikely, there are some cultures for which evidence exists this has already happened.

So perhaps instead of waiting for the Earth to speed up or fry up, we should just be very thankful physics has decreed that electrons are very light and not heavier, like the size of elephants for example.

If they were, of course, it would mean everyone would be held immobile in place by their wrists as electronic elephant weights circulated slowly inside their digital watches. If that was the case, people would no longer be too concerned about the degree of fade of their curtains due to daylight saving.

As this has all happened already and everything continues as before, I assume the effect was much the same as the Y2K bug at the start of this century.

Alan Willoughby


Regular contributor Tyler Taarse comments on Helen Clark:

John Key having told me/us how useless Helen Clark and her Labour Government was several elections ago, now nominating her for the position of Head Cushiest Job at the United Nations. Am I being too cynical here, but isn't it time for new blood to come through and Aunty Helen to retire on her generous parliamentary superannuation, current UN salary savings and whatever other perks she is able to rack up?

If she couldn't run NZ satisfactorily then how on earth can she run the UN?

Helen Clark for UN Secretary-General rankles to about the same degree as Dame Susan for Race Relations commissioner. But I guess that's further evidence of qualifications and ability not being essential for political appointments?

Meanwhile, David Hesse of Papamoa has been monitoring the situation with cones on the spinifex sculpture.



Finally, a fuss has broken out in Mother England, over plans to make Thomas the Tank Engine more PC by having female trains, and engines of broader ethnic background.
Some purist English folk are aghast that Thomas may end up with friends who are not strictly Stiff Upper Lip Englishmen.

Here at RR, being incredibly racially tolerant, we think it's an excellent idea to have more ethnicities represented amongst English fictional characters.

In fact, we'd like to see more famous celebrities appearing.

We'd like to see Postman Patel and his multi-coloured cat. And it's time Dr Who was played by a Chinaman. Dr Hu.

Send us your suggestions for widening the ethnic diversity of English fiction characters.

The best will win a curry.

brian@thesun.co.nz

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