I should have guessed from Niall‘s latest blog entry that something was going on.

Normally Niall’s oily trips abroad involve either lots of work or prolonged periods of doing nothing while waiting for lots of work. And it’s during the latter that he comes up with strange and wonderful ideas.

Like renaming time.

If you were reading this blog back in 2007 (and if not, frankly I can’t blame you) you’ll probably (not) recall me pointing you towards Niall’s project to rename the weeks, hours and minutes, bringing them in line with the days and months which of course already have names.

His recent occupational inactivity in Nigeria has, it seems, brought this to fruition, and I was surprised and delighted to receive – quite out of the blue – a copy of “Modern Time – A Handbook For The New System” in the post today.

It is a truly remarkable book – an easy read, and terrifically funny, and the sort of thing you could put next to all those “little books of…” or snippetously humorous books you find in people’s bathrooms. I could genuinely recommend it as a perfect Christmas present, in fact, were it not the 22nd of May.

May, Brown Saturday, I mean. Knight Rider Heavenly, to be precise.