Residents of the small fishing village of Kilkeel in County Down are getting ready to hold their annual "Dim Jim Week" festival in celebration of one of their community having serious difficulty with the relatively simple task of putting his clocks back one hour.
James Cunningham, 31, from Harbour Road in the village, has reportedly failed to carry out this task correctly every October for the last ten years, due to an apparent misunderstanding of the mechanics of the procedure involved.
"It's hilarious", said Patrick Magee, a local councillor. "He knows that the clocks go back one hour at 2:00a.m. on the last Sunday in October. So, when that time comes round, he puts them back to 1:00a.m. The problem is, an hour later, it's 2:00a.m. on the last Sunday in October again, so he puts them back again, and he just keeps on putting them back every time it's 2:00a.m. One time, he managed to go a whole week before collapsing from exhaustion. People came from miles around to see it. It was brilliant," he added.
Mr. Cunningham's difficulty was first spotted ten years ago when he commenced employment in a local shop and arrived into work a number of days late in a state of confused exhaustion.
"He didn't come in until Wednesday, a few days into November," said Norman Smyth, his employer. " I asked him what happened and he didn't know what I was talking about. He still thought it was Monday. When he told me what actually happened, I did the only thing I could do and told all my mates about it straight away. The festival just sort of grew up from there."
There are concerns for the future of the festival, however, as Cunningham is reportedly intending to abandon putting his clocks back in future. "It's a waste of time," he said. "Like, they say they do it so the sun rises earlier and it'll be brighter in the mornings but that's just stupid. I mean, I remember a day last October when the sun was rising and it was still only 1:15a.m."
