"We'll call it England."

One.



My clock says it is three forty-five, Wednesday the 22nd December 2004.

Actually, the clock doesn’t mention the date. I just added that for clarity.

Also, although my clock says it is three forty-five, it is, in fact, two forty-five.

This is because, when the clocks went back the last time (some time in late October, as I recall), I never bothered to change the one in my office.

This was done on purpose. It’s so I can keep a check on what time it would have been had the clocks not gone back.

I’m finicky that way.

Also, while it may be two forty-five Greenwich Mean Time - three forty-five British Summer Time - it is all sorts of different times around the world.

Where my brother lives (several thousand miles due West of here) it is around five hours earlier. He’s probably drinking his first cup of coffee at work right now, still puzzling out the day’s requirements. Meanwhile where my sister lives (several thousand miles due South) it is exactly the same time as here, though a hell of a lot warmer.

My sister lives in Tenerife. My brother lives in New York State.

Such is the extraordinary mobility of the human race in this, the early part of the twenty-first century, that families can live this far apart, and still keep in touch.

Who knows how we will live in the future?

Who knows if we have a future?

Only time will tell.

I live in a small seaside town on the South Eastern coast of a small country off the European mainland, which, for historically dubious reasons, gets called by a variety of names. I won’t go into all the names just now. Let’s just settle on a name and be done with it for the time being. We’ll call it England.

It’s as good a name as any.

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