Shifting clocks and houses

And tonight, at 2 AM, also if you’re in Europe, don’t forget to obey the Arch Druid’s stupid executive order and shove your clock’s hour indicator forward, to the falsified “summer time.”

Until October 29, the Sun’s positions in the sky will not be true to the geometry of this megalithic clock. At the June solstice it will not rise exactly where it’s supposed to in relation to the Heel Stone.

A Stonehenge stone can weigh up to 20 tons, and to move any one of them without mechanical aid would require the legendary strength of the giants Otis and Ephialtes, who piled Mount Pelion and Mount Ossa on Mount Olympus to storm heaven, or of Atlas, the Titan who holds up the sky, or of Hercules, who briefly relieved Atlas of this task.

Or, I almost believe, of one of the four men from DBM Removals who on March 18 moved all our belongings out of a three-storey house in Isleworth and into a sixth-floor flat in Southwark.

Moving from one residence to another is called, in the dialect of the north of England, “flitting.” That gets the prize for understatement.

I wish I had taken a photo of them maneuvering a massive and awkwardly shaped table down the complicated spaces of a staircase.

I called these men Hercules, Atlas, Samson, and Rustam, not knowing their Polish names. Each of them was a foot shorter than me in height and a foot taller in strength, energy, agility, and intelligence for perceiving three-dimensional spaces and how to get through them.

I strongly believe in the rights of immigrants. These men were a living proof of the need for immigrants. Try getting anyone else to do this exhausting labor eight hours a day six days a week.

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