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Letter: Our perception of time is different for us all (2)

Published 25 February 2026

From Richard Turner, Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, UK

My personal experience of time certainly differs radically from what I see the clock recording. The older I get, the more rapidly Saturdays seem to come round, and doing anything practical makes time fly past before I finish it. My memory for some things that happened long ago is as sharp as a pin, whereas great swathes of my professional career have disappeared like snow in summer. I cannot speed up my thinking processes. I just hand the question to my brain and hope it comes up with the answer eventually – sometimes minutes, hours or even days later. Clocks are just interesting artefacts that live in a world of their own. Ageing goes in stops and starts, rather than continuously.

Issue no. 3584 published 28 February 2026

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