On Time Travel

I’m reading “The Time Traveller’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger at the moment....one of several novels I picked up during a recent trawl through my local second hand book shop. So far, it’s been a good and absorbing read, and I’m keen to finish the book before I rent the movie, as, in keeping with the norm, the book is reputed to be the better of the two.

Time travel is an interesting concept, and one that I think would be really cool to experience, provided you had control over the time to which you travelled, when you travelled and how long you stayed at that time...unlike “The Time Traveller’s” character, Henry. Of course, the greatest temptation of travelling back in time would be to try and change the past, to right wrongs and prevent tragedies from happening...and there are a fair few things that I would gladly change, given the chance. On the other hand, I wouldn’t really want to mess with the past, as who knows what consequences that would bring for the present and for the future. Fate will, inevitably, run its course...

However, being able to go back in time simply to use time over again, to achieve different things would be great...and is something that would have made this past week at work a whole load easier. Being in two places at once and being able to get through double the workload would be a huge advantage, and is something that some of my clients clearly think that I am indeed capable of achieving. Either that or they think I am an incurable insomniac, who loves nothing better than working all through the night and all weekend.

Big Nob Client: “So... we should be able to get you the final data by our end of day, today."
[So that’s anytime between 6 pm and midnight, New York time, ie, between 11 pm and 5 am, UK time]
Big Nob Client: “And we would really need the report finished and with us first thing tomorrow morning.”
Nat: “By which you mean 9 am your time, 2 pm mine?”
Big Nob Client: “Well, it would be really great if our London colleagues could have a look at it first, so let’s make it 10 am UK time.”
Nat: “No problem...as soon as you send the data through, I’ll just hop in my home-assembled time machine, travel back to last week Wednesday, and start writing... as that’s the amount of time I would actually need to do even a half-arsed job on your report!”

Yeah, yeah, I wouldn’t never be so disrespectful to a client, they are our bread and butter, the customer is always right and all that sh*t. So I really just said that "I’d see what I can do"....and looked into getting hooked up to an intravenous caffeine feed.