![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What time is love?
Aug. 12th, 2010 09:38 amI don't know if you read the papers, but yesterday brought us the news that the Saudi Arabians have unveiled the Mecha-Clock, a gigantic robot timepiece designed to protect Riyadh from attacks by Mothra and King Gidorah.
Oh, hang on, I read that wrong. What they've actually unveiled is the Mecca Clock, a huge arabic-styled replica of Big Ben which will light up in bright colours when it's time to pray. Possibly a siren will sound or gigantic cuckoo will pop out as well, but the press release didn't mention that bit.
Anyway, the stated objective of the project is to replace Greenwich Mean Time with Mecca time as the true standard of global timekeeping. At a Doha conference in 2008, the claim was advanced that Mecca is the true Prime Meridian on account of it being perfectly aligned with Magnetic North making it a 'zero magnetism zone', which surprises most people who thought Magnetic North was currently at 81.3°N 110.8°W in Canada. This was actually one of the more sensible suggestions from the confrence which also suggested that gravity is lower in Mecca, and one speaker - Dr. Abd al-Baset al-Sayyed of the Egyptian National Research Centre in Cairo - went on to say that the Kaaba emits 'infinte radiation' detectable on Mars and Neil Armstrong has claimed Allah created the world. Unfortunately I don't have footage of the conference so I can't tell you if his eyes were both pointing in the same direction whilst he spoke, or how long it took the orderlies to get him back into the anti-thrash jacket at the end.
In reality, I reckon it will take a lot of work to get Saudi Mean Time to catch on if only because all one has to do is look at the millions of women dressed in sacks in the Kingdom to realise that, whatever time it is in the rest of the world, it's still the 14th century in Saudi Arabia.
Oh, hang on, I read that wrong. What they've actually unveiled is the Mecca Clock, a huge arabic-styled replica of Big Ben which will light up in bright colours when it's time to pray. Possibly a siren will sound or gigantic cuckoo will pop out as well, but the press release didn't mention that bit.
Anyway, the stated objective of the project is to replace Greenwich Mean Time with Mecca time as the true standard of global timekeeping. At a Doha conference in 2008, the claim was advanced that Mecca is the true Prime Meridian on account of it being perfectly aligned with Magnetic North making it a 'zero magnetism zone', which surprises most people who thought Magnetic North was currently at 81.3°N 110.8°W in Canada. This was actually one of the more sensible suggestions from the confrence which also suggested that gravity is lower in Mecca, and one speaker - Dr. Abd al-Baset al-Sayyed of the Egyptian National Research Centre in Cairo - went on to say that the Kaaba emits 'infinte radiation' detectable on Mars and Neil Armstrong has claimed Allah created the world. Unfortunately I don't have footage of the conference so I can't tell you if his eyes were both pointing in the same direction whilst he spoke, or how long it took the orderlies to get him back into the anti-thrash jacket at the end.
In reality, I reckon it will take a lot of work to get Saudi Mean Time to catch on if only because all one has to do is look at the millions of women dressed in sacks in the Kingdom to realise that, whatever time it is in the rest of the world, it's still the 14th century in Saudi Arabia.
