Speaking clock
 

My kids asked me for the time this morning ( I was in a beautiful slumber!) and my watch loses a lot of time these days.

Does 'Straya have a speaking clock?

Beep...beep....BEEP!!!

(That should keep us happy for a while. I'm rather hoping Australia doesn't so that we can pour scorn and vitriol.:p)

Re: Speaking clock
 

The one in the Uk was quite incredible. Always right. My parents used it a lot.

They changed the voice a few years back or summat'.

Re: Speaking clock
 

According to Wikipedia Australia does have one. I dialled it from Brisbane and it said "The time is 1972" :sneaky:

Re: Speaking clock
 

I wonder if Aus has a shipping forecast. When I catch that on the beeb for some stupid reason I listen to it. I find it weirdly compelling.

Re: Speaking clock
 

:rofl:

I knew there was a riposte somewhere....we have a winner!

And yes, there is one, as it turns out. Here in Melbourne, the time is indeed 2012....

Re: Speaking clock
 

all the veerings and backings....
and place names...

There was a book about that..

Re: Speaking clock
 

The Speaking Clock bloke I heard just now sounded suspiciously British. He did have Melbourne time right though...

Re: Speaking clock
 

I'm sorry I just caused you to shell out the coin for the phone...oh - and it doesn't surprise me - I meet loads of Australians who could pass for Brits...based on their accents.

Re: Speaking clock
 

Whats the betting if I phoned the speaking clock from herE in WA it'd give me the time on the East Coast????:blink:

Re: Speaking clock
 

No it would probably be right and give 1954 for Perth.

Re: Speaking clock
 

I'd like one that said "It's wine o'clock!" whenever you dialled.

Re: Speaking clock
 

That is so British. As a kid I would listen in wonder at gale warnings.

its here online.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qfvv

Sadly those deep and slow BBC RP pronunciations seem to have gone.

Re: Speaking clock
 

Another quirky thing I remember so clearly.... Was all those searching for people things they did. "Looking for the son of so and so... because your father is Dangerously Ill"... Wonder when that stopped.

Re: Speaking clock
 

I think thosed coded radio messages broadcast by the BBC ceased in 1945.....

There will be a fullmoon in liverpool tonight... Mrs Jones handkerchiefs wre white, but now they are blue, looking for the son of Mr X your father is dangerously ill....

Re: Speaking clock
 

I remember a few from when I was a kid in the 70s; when I was in bed ill I would listen to the World Service a lot overnight, you used to hear announcements on there for stuff like "John, somewhere in India, please call home urgently".

Re: Speaking clock
 

In the late 70s I worked in Dubai. It seems like a couple of years ago, but it was nearly 35.

There was no email, no internet, and newspapers were about 4 days old when we got them. I shared a villa with two older guys, and on the table in the kitchen was a shortwave radio locked into the BBC World Service. We would listen to the news every night, and of course the football results.

I can still close my eyes and hear the crackle and hiss, the drifting signal, the dulcet tones.

Such good memories. :)

Re: Speaking clock
 

1972 wasn't bad. I'd do it again.:thumbsup:

Re: Speaking clock
 

How did it sound...'like they were just in the next room...'

(The Dish! Great film.)

Re: Speaking clock
 

Sometimes in life we hear a song, or smell something and we go straight back to earlier times. The fading in and out of the BBC announcer, the hiss and warble of a signal coming from home, takes me back to Jebel Ali.

The news then seemed like news. Great events happened in those years.

I remember listening to the news of the fall of the Shah of Iran, just 90 miles away across a disputed Gulf. For a kid living abroad for the first time it was heady stuff. Old hands on the site reassured me, but they listened to every word on the BBC too.

I still listen from time to time. I could get it via the Internet, but it's nicer when I get it on shortwave, thr crackle and hiss, the missed words, the fading....

Re: Speaking clock
 

Me too. I used to LOVE the shipping forecast all those strange names. Cromarty Forth Dogger Tyne...

I've been watching reruns of the classic As Time Goes By with Dame Judi Dench and the wonderfully dry Geoffrey Palmer. Their housekeeper in their country house was always quoting the shipping forecast.

Re: Speaking clock
 

Seriously I wish we had a LIKE button same as on Facebook.
:thumbsup:

Re: Speaking clock
 

What is the speaking clock number?

Re: Speaking clock
 

depends what time you call :p:rofl:

Re: Speaking clock
 

I wrote a bit about it here:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=643322&page=3

Re: Speaking clock
 

dunno, but appear to have no shortage of 'speaking cocks'! You only have to sift through here for evidence of that :eek:

Re: Speaking clock
 

Meanwhile somewhere in perf... 2012.......... Families everywhere are recreating life in Dubai circa 1970

Re: Speaking clock
 

My Daughters over there now.... enjoyed sitting in the sun yesterday in her Tshirt and shorts. First reports "Not as dead on a Sunday as they'd expected"

It's going to be interesting having a close relation in Perth.

Re: Speaking clock
 

It's annoying...not easy to remember. (I hate this country etc etc and am working myself up to a state of frenzy....etc )

I believe a name that once belonged to my family comes up in one of them. Lol.

My old man would listen to it - then turn off the radio - pronto.

I am a c**k and so is my wife.