Sir, - Far from pooh-poohing calendrical or horological precision, I nonetheless once again justed my time-piece recently in line with the extra autumnal hour in bed - aided and abetted by the easy-to-remember "Spring forward-Fall back" clue. However, I am likewise ever ready to spring forward to fall back, as it were, on the time-free, non-mechanical dawn-sunset rhythms of Mother Nature as a form of therapy in a very go-go world.
Musing on Hilaire Belloc's "I am a sundial and I make a botch of what is done much better by a watch" (from On a Sundial), it seems to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that the sundial, unlike the watch, is less likely to botch the notch of the exact millisecond between the end of one thing and the start of another.
Wherefore, I prefer to ignore the precise pip of an atomic clock registering noon, for example, and de-clock myself to allow the measuring of minutes to drain away into a silence outside time. Hence my nostaliga for the good old days when we relied on the ability of a dandelion to give us the time even though there was always one seed that refused to be blown off. Or, my preference for delightfully casual catch-phrases such as "I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon " (Oliver Goldsmith) rather than three o'clock sharp (which is rarely sharp anyway!) - Yours, etc.,
Fr Pat Deighan, Laytown, Co Meath.