Avid readers (Ha!) of DWC will remember my trip, along with Pete and Toni (Hello folks!) when back in Ahmedabad and the National Utensil Museum of India. I saw this beauty on arrival at Fun-Gary (Hello our kid’s childhood hero, Mr Lineker!) and have been counting the days until my visit.

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Promising the largest collection of clocks in the Southern Hemisphere it certainly doesn’t disappoint on that level, although the keenness behind my visit seems ill-founded. Vishalla it ain’t.

There are hundreds of timepieces of all descriptions but mainly cuckoo clocks. The friendly fraus behind the welcome desk, whether through design are not, are German or Swiss in keeping with the kuckucksuhr theme and are very happy in their work. The museum is in tribute to a one of the city’s most famous residents, a Mr Archibald Clapham who, as a Mr Cholmondley-Warner film tells you was an avid clock collector. Though one with a mischievous sense of humour. The Jeremy Beadle of the horophile world, this joker had the post-war Kiwis in stitches with his quirky clocks and witty watches…. Oh, the fun they must have had.
Following the short film and an an insight into what the hell I’ve let myself in for, sorry, an appreciation of my immediate surroundings, I tentatively take a walk along the misty jade painted corridor, its walls chock full of timepieces of all descriptions.

I was expecting famous Kiwi moments from history via the medium of horology. You know the sort of thing; the actual pocket watch James Cook wore when he first landed here, Sir Edmund Hillary’s pocket sundial, Richard Hadlee’s Casio, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa’s diamond encrusted wristwatch.
Instead it’s the Coldplay song brought all to realistically to life as the ticking, tocking, whirring, bonging and clanging seem to close the room seems to narrow in the growing and bordering on incessant din.

Like some kind of Antiques Roadshow Torture Chamber, my chest tightens, my throat dries, my ears ring. Make it stop.

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Please? No, really. I beg and plead.

Seeing a glimpse of light between the pasty, deadening Midlands couple here on holiday, the sinister looking Disney alarm clocks and beneath the sentry-like grandfather clocks I make a dash for it, avoiding the glare of the watchful (literally) receptionist, clearly bewildered by my blatant under enthusiasm for Fun-Gary’s second most visited attraction. The Northland fresh air tastes even better than usual.
Home, where I wanted to go.

*Hello Will! Hello Ed! Hello Eats!