Fiona McCade: Time bandit is the guerrilla in our midst

Published on Wednesday 13 July 2011 21:52

THE worst thing my six-year-old can say about anything is that "it takes a long time". It's his harshest criticism.

Washing "takes a long time", brushing his teeth "takes a long time", being informed about stuff that will enable him to live a longer, safer and happier life than he may have done otherwise "takes a really, really long time".

But generally, in his opinion, what takes the longest time of all is school.

Luckily for him, it's now the summer holidays (yes, even for the good people of Dumfries and Galloway who only joined the rest of us last week, but hey, better late than never) and suddenly, it's my turn to notice what a very, very long time certain things can take.

Entertaining small children is often a challenge, and when you have to do it non-stop, every day for six weeks, those days drag much more than they do when you have a moment for yourself.

When I'm having a cuppa with my friends, time seems to pass only too quickly. When I'm chasing a howling pack of feral, sugar-happy six-year-olds around and around the park, trying to convince them that the party's over, I feel like several years have passed.

Since the schools broke up for the apparent eternity of summer, I've tried to get Junior to do some interesting things and go to some fun places, but I'm not always successful.

Apparently, almost anything mummy wants to do "takes a long time". Conversely, the brat can watch King Kong (the original, black and white version) what seems like 18 bleedin' times a day but, as far as he's concerned, this does not take a long time at all.

Quite the contrary; in Junior-world, the same 90 minutes spent watching a rubber gorilla climb the Empire State Building – over and over and over again – takes but a nanosecond.

Meanwhile, Fay Wray's screams are going around and around my head, like a fleet of miniature planes attacking my brain.

It's strange, this changeable perception of time, and I know I'm not alone in experiencing it.

For instance, an American writer called Matt Danzico is currently conducting an online experiment called The Time Hack, specifically to explore how much our perception of time is influenced by our activities.

Every day, Danzico does something he's never done before "to understand how my perception of time speeds and slows in relation to each event".

The actual amount of time it takes him is accurately measured, but before Danzico finds this out, he has to estimate how long he thinks it took.

He calls this "remembered time" and the two often vary wildly.

For instance, he did some secretarial work for – how long? He guessed he'd done 1 hour 42 minutes worth of work, but he hadn't; he'd done just 1 hour 14 minutes, so the time spent being a secretary seemed to last around 25 per cent longer than it actually did. Yep, quite a lot of us can vouch for that.

Strangely, the day he watched paint dry, he was only 35 seconds out, but that unexpected accuracy might have been achieved because he drifted off into a daydream and that helped the "remembered time" seem shorter.

I was dumb enough to watch the video – it was an excuse not to watch King Kong again – and, from where I was sitting, it seemed to take forever.

I HAVE a theory about relativity. I think Einstein came up with the idea that time can dilate when he was looking after his kids during the school holidays.

He must have realised that if you push a child on a swing for five minutes, in terms of "remembered time", you end up feeling like it was at least an hour.

In fact, I reckon E=mc2 actually stands for Ennui equals monotonous children squared.

I also have another theory: the closer you stand to a child who has an interest you do not share, the slower time moves and the faster you age.

Empirically, I know this is true, but please don't ask me to explain the physics. That would take a very long time.