You can get some amazing stuff from Argos these days. 

Interesting Clock backs are on page 12 thousand 4 hundred and fifty eight.  Shame you don't get the fronts as well (it's self assembly.)

I haven't managed to save any money, but I've saved hours and hours of daylight over the years by consistly getting up quite late.  I'm planning to get up at 2.30am and do some gardening on Tuesday, using a bit of my saved up daylight. 

Changing the subject here, apparently hundreds of endurance race runners are stranded in the Lake District.  Several have been hospitalised with hypothermia and they have abandoned the race.  There are still hundreds up there spending the night on the mountains.  They have all the necessary survival kit on them for this annual event apparently, but with several inches of rain having fallen today, all the becks and streams have become raging torrents and many roads are impassable and have been closed.

This will have cost a fortune in rescue terms.  I know the weather is regarded as exceptional at the moment but it does beg the question whether this event should have been allowed to go ahead.

Here's a partial quote :-


Mr Weir said the race should have been called off.

"Now we've got several hundred, into the thousand, stranded, cold, tired, some hypothermic," he said.

"We've overwhelmed the emergency services - the poor mountain rescue are out trying to find people on the side of the mountain, in the dark. It's just a bizarre day."

Shane Ohly, who completed the run, said: "The weather was very bad; gale force winds and torrential rain. However, the event is for experienced fell runners and everyone should have been able to cope.

"The Original Mountain Marathon is one of the best organised events of its type and I am sure the organisers will be doing everything they can," he said.


Another run participant, Lewis Peattie, said he and his teammate were lucky to get out when they did.

"We had difficulty getting down due to streams becoming fast torrents of water and 'waterfalls' springing out of nowhere," he said.

Will Creek, who was due to take part in the race, told the BBC that he had pulled out because of the bad weather conditions.

"I looked at the weather forecast and took the view it was too treacherous for my wife and I to take part. I just thought it was too dangerous," he said.

Ian Boorman, of the Glaramara Centre in Seatoller, at the bottom of the Borrowdale Valley, said his centre had taken in 78 runners for the night.

Most had basic supplies with them and staff at the centre had given them hot drinks and dry clothes, he said.

"They're in good spirits," he added.

Police advised drivers not to travel to the region, and many of the main roads through the Lake District have been closed.

No-one from OMM has so far been available for comment but their website describes the run as being founded in 1968 and it being the "originator of the two-day mountain marathon type event".

It involves teams of two, carrying all clothing, equipment, tent, sleeping bag, and their food for 36 hours, during the run. They must also navigate their own route and camp out overnight.

The website goes on to say that the OMM is "the premier UK event to test teamwork, self-reliance, endurance, outdoor and navigational skills. The reputation of the event is worldwide and every year we have entrants from between 12-14 countries."

On the news report I heard, one of those organizing the rescue work suggested that those responsible for the decision not to cancel the event should be shot!

Clocks? What's this about clocks? Nobody told me. Are they changing on the continent tonight too? They normally do. That's where I am at the moment but I'll be returning to Blighty tomorrow. I feel the extra hour's sleep would be very welcome. But I don't want to miss my train. Hm.