Royal Observatory celebrates 350 punctual years
The Royal Observatory has marked 350 years since Charles II established it in Greenwich, proving Britain can organise time perfectly provided nobody asks it to run a train. The anniversary began exactly when it meant to. This was not a transport service.
Founded in 1675, the observatory helped sailors calculate longitude through astronomical observations. Before then, navigation relied on stars, courage and captains insisting the unexpected continent had always featured in the itinerary.
The world gets an agreed reference point for lateness
Greenwich later became home to the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. Consequently, the world gained a reference point from which everyone could be late with increasingly impressive accuracy.
“We have measured every second since the Restoration,” said Professor Mavis Sidereal Snack of the Important Brass Clock. “Sadly, platform staff still describe twelve minutes as shortly.”
The anniversary celebrates astronomers, human computers and centuries of scientific ingenuity. Meanwhile, visitors stood with one foot in each hemisphere and discovered that neither side had charged the family phone.
A telescope searches for next Tuesday
The observatory also has London’s only planetarium and Britain’s largest refracting telescope. Its instruments can see deep into space, although finding a tradesperson free next Tuesday remains beyond current optical science.
At precisely 4.17pm, the celebrations ended. Guests then waited until 4.42pm for a service delayed by an earlier concept of time, which had apparently developed an issue near somewhere important.
The observatory took this well. After three and a half centuries, it knows that time is relative, especially when the replacement bus says it is due in two minutes.
Read the real story: Royal Museums Greenwich’s 350th anniversary announcement.
