And breathe. The out of office is set, Min the cat is in her holiday home, and the car is just about packed.
The title refers to our position relative to acknowledged time lines. Tomorrow we will be holidaying in Lincolnshire, an undervalued county in our opinion, but we’ll not complain. We would not want everyone to descend upon our peace.
Our base for the week will be a hamlet called Little London. There are several other Little Londons in the UK. They are on the Greenwich Time Line, giving their connection to our capital city, hence the name. The similarities just about stop there.
I thought that I would look a little into how and why Greenwich became recognised as longtitude zero, otherwise know as the Prime Meridian and I give you a Wikipedia fuelled nutshell:
– The Greek Eratosthenes developed the notion of longtitude;
– Ptolemy developed this further suggesting a Prime Meridian running approximately through The Canaries;
– Increased long distance sea travel and the development of the naval chronometer demanded a more accurate method of mapping and the agreement of the line of longitude zero.
– In 1884, the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, D.C. voted to adopt the Sir George Airy’s Greenwich meridian as the prime meridian.
– The French wanted a neutral line, abstained and continued to use the Paris meridian until 1911.
– Many Prime Meridians are listed by Wikipedia, surely a contradiction in terms?
– The Airy Meridian is at GPS 0° 00′ 05.3101″ W.
As far as I am concerned, for the coming week, we got ‘tude zero!
minor6th 