The clock

Our hotel balcony overlooks the Clock Hotel. The notable feature of which is, unsurprisingly, a clock. This lives on a turret on one corner of the building, and at every quarter hour it plays a tune while large but unidenfiable figures parade aound the turret. One saving grace is that it is not the same tune every 15 minutes. There are repeats, but on a cycle of 5 hours or so.

The tunes have been transposed for clock bells by someone more interested in showing off the number of bells than in a strictly accurate rendition. And I suspect if you asked them to sing the tunes in question there would be significant passages of lalalalalas. Despite these obstacles we have so far identified Brahms lullaby, The Hills are Alive, Edelweiss, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Auld Lang Syne, and When the Saints go Marching In, Greensleeves, and something that might possibly be The Blue Danube, although I'm not sure Strauss himself could swear to it.Read more