A gaggle of hacks (that’s the collective noun) are enjoying a pint outside the offices of Associated Newspapers in the February sun.
A newcomer notices the grand old clock on the side of the building.
“It’s a Daily Mail clock” says a hoary old sub. “Which means it will be wrong.”
A riff develops on other newspaper clocks. The one at the Evening Standard broke 20 years ago. The one at the Daily Telegraph tells you what time it is in 1957.
The one at the FT is painstakingly accurate, but two days late.
The Sun clock is usually right, but the information therein was obtained illegally so you aren’t allowed to mention it.
The Independent couldn’t afford the upkeep and changed it to a digital display.
The Guardian’s was built with state-of-the-art technology – but then scores of hacks were let go to pay for it.
The Times’s reports the time as MCMXXXIV.
The Mirror’s clock doesn’t tell you what the time is but what it thinks the time should be.
The Morning Star’s clock tells you the time in Moscow.
The Daily Express’s clock has a hand missing because Richard Desmond removed it for cost-cutting reasons.
Now, if Brunswick, Finsbury and FTI were clocks….
