N September 17, 2008, anyone listening to the BBC’s local and national radio stations could have been forgiven for thinking they had woken up in an alternate reality. Why? The most reliable noise in the world had just gone somewhat awry. The Greenwich Time Signal ‘pips’—those half-dozen high-pitched, strangely reassuring bursts of time-keeping precision noise—went horribly wrong that morning. Firstly, they were
