Time

And so it's Friday again. It seems to come around with alarming regularity (once a week in fact) and with it of course comes the need to think of something to write about. Not that there's any obligation, I ought to add - although it's an intriguing thought to imagine Benny, Ant, Mr Bus, the two Si's et al slaving away in a smoke-filled newspaper office, while Lissa struts around like the cigar-chomping editor-in-chief in "Spiderman", yelling out things like, "Hold the front page!" and "Isn't Curnow back from lunch yet?" the reality is that things are pretty laid back at the Unjunior Gazette. But as I said in an earlier column, I do feel a certain guilt when I consider that Si Hunt is producing superb reams on a daily basis; irrational perhaps, but enough to make me feel I ought to at least knock out something once a week. (To digress for a moment, today's episode of Si's guide to Doctor Who covers "The Green Death" and once again he has produced something totally unexpected but terribly absorbing - I believe, by the way, that Richard Franklin was a semi-regular in Emmerdale Farm during the 80s, although whether that makes him more or less of a 'failure' is a matter of opinion. His character ended up crushed by a horse I seem to recall. Hmm.)

But, given that (a) I feel I ought to be writing something; and (b) there's still an awful lot of blank on this page, what should I write about? Last week Kylie Minogue came to my rescue (I'm sure that must be somebody's fantasy, but alas not mine) but this week nothing. Only the awareness that it is 'already' Friday again. From here my week generally follows a roughly fixed pattern - Saturday will be a bit of shopping, a bit of washing & drying, some tidying, and some playing with my littl'un; Sunday will be more of the same, maybe with a bit of ironing thrown in for good measure, all accompanied by the encroaching sense of gloom that the end of the weekend brings; Monday is work, and having to cope with the very fact that it's Monday; Tuesday more work; Wednesday start to determine what we will be shipping to America this week (at work, needless to say); Thursday will be packing said shipment, raising delivery notes, invoices, shipping documentation, idly complaining about getting engineering grease and dirt behind my fingernails; and then it's Friday again and with a quick prayer to the god of Crunchie for the fact, that's the week gone.

Not a very original observation I know, but don't the weeks and months (and years) seem to race by much faster when you're grown up than they ever did as a child. I'm quite sure that when I was at school the Summer Holidays lasted longer than the Korean War; but my daughter's break from school last Summer seemed to come and go in a lunchtime. My mother-in-law gleefully phoned us up today to let us know that she has already got a present for our daughter's birthday - which is still more than three months away. Even the six-to-be-seven year old in question hasn't really started thinking about it yet! But, it won't be long I'm sure before it's upon us. Just as the days of the week go by one after another in quick succession, so the weeks and the months do too, leaping from Valentines days and Mothers days to birthdays and anniversaries and bank holidays... Blimey, it'll soon be Christmas at this rate!

OK, maybe not quite. But it's probably true to say that when Christmas 2004 does arrive I shall find myself thinking that it doesn't seem very long since the last one. So why is this do we think? Does time genuinely move faster the older you get, or is it simply an illusion? Douglas Adams wrote that time was "an illusion; lunchtime doubly so" as already mentioned in Ian Cragg's excellent article hereabouts on this very subject (er, the subject of time that is, not lunchtime). The Adams quote isn't particularly relevant here, or indeed very helpful - but I'm halfway through his biography at the moment, and it has reminded me of some of his witticisms. I have been referring to things as "apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate" an inordinate number of times this week (and tomorrow I'm going to ring up Mum & Dad to discuss this 'non-existence of God' theory...)

But I digress (again! - and it doesn't seem five minutes since I last said that). In answer to the question I posed in the previous paragraph (before I veered wildly off the point) I don't believe that 'time' as an entity adopts different speeds or properties as we age. But our use and our perception of it does change.

I think the main reason time seems to go by so quickly is because of what we do with it. As children we more or less do what the hell we want with our time. Yes there is the obligation of school, although even that is nothing like the adult equivalent of a job - unless you know of a job that allows you to do a 30 hour week with an hour for lunch, 14 weeks holiday per year, and effectively unlimited time off for sickness (as long as you have a note from your Mum). And there are various things that now and again you have to do - visits to the dentist, shopping expeditions for new shoes or clothes, that sort of thing. But weighed against those occasions when you are obliged to use up your time in ways you wouldn't particularly choose, is an awful lot of what as adults we would consider 'free time'. Time to play with friends, or alone, or try out hobbies, or read, or watch TV, or... or... or just whatever you want to do. It's bliss.

Compare that with an adult's time. As well as work there's a whole range of things to be done, just to maintain the status quo of things - mowing the lawn, putting out the rubbish, cooking the tea, washing the clothes, doing the dishes, ironing, tidying up, shopping..... So by the time everything is done that has to be done, we are already well into our 'free' (by which I really mean 'not at work') time that there is very little time (comparatively speaking) left to do other things like read or socialise or... or... or whatever. And that's not even considering the fact that once all those humdrum jobs are done you don't always have the energy to do much else.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not particularly complaining about time or the lack thereof - although I might have a little moan in a minute when I use up some of my time to clean out the cats' litter trays (still, at least the mucking out of the rabbits, rats, guinea pigs and gerbils is my other half's responsibility). It would be disingenuous, and in fact apocryphal (or at least wildly inaccurate) of me to sit here and complain that I have no free time. For one thing I probably spend too much time on the internet. No, don't try and argue with me-- oh, you weren't. For another, I do get some time to watch the occasional episode of "Doctor Who" or read "Hitchhiker" or whatever (and, but whisper it, I quite enjoy ironing anyway). But equally it is a far cry from being eight and having hours at a time to myself to enact the further adventures of C-3P0 with my Star Wars figures aboard the Palitoy Cardboard Death Star.

And another thing! No, not really a diatribe, but under what heading do we consider time spent on or with my daughter? Is she another chore cutting into my (and can I just clarify that in general 'my' and 'our' should be considered interchangeable - she has two, equal parents but I don't like to keep using 'we' in case anybody thinks I'm coming over all royal)-- Is she another chore cutting into my free time, or is she one of those 'other things' I use my free time on? Well, let's be honest it's probably a bit of both. When tomorrow morning comes (and don't the mornings come around much quicker when you're an adult?) and my daughter drags me downstairs, we will probably watch Scooby Doo (Boomerang, Channel 603) over breakfast - I quite enjoy the wacky adventures of the Scooby Gang, but if I'm completely honest I'd probably prefer to watch Doctor Who (UK Gold, Channel 109) or even just have the extra hour in bed.

More than that - when later in the day my little girl wants to play Barbies (and there's probably a whole column to be had out of Ms Barbie, so I won't go there just now) I will of course do so. Not because, all things being equal, I particularly want to play with Barbie dolls, but because I partly want, and partly feel I should, play with my daughter. I'd be a liar if I didn't say that a part of it is obligation, but also a part of it is the fun (wrong word - enjoyment? contentment maybe?) of playing with her, of spending time together simply not doing anything particular.

Just as the weeks and months and years race by, so one day, and it may well be (and will certainly seem) one day fairly soon, my daughter won't want to play Dollies with her Daddy, or hang around with her parents, and then further out again she probably won't live at home anyway. By then she'll be an adult herself, with time recklessly running past her, and then our time together won't be automatic and constant, but much rarer. And with that in mind, although there are many things I (and again, I meaning we) can never give my daughter, such as annual trips to Disneyland, or a pony in the back garden, while I have it I can always give her... time.