November 2, 2025
Time Lord vs. Comment Section
A man who changes the time on Big Ben
He bikes at dawn to fix 3,300 clocks — and the internet argues what ‘Big Ben’ actually is
TLDR: Andrew Strangeway manually resets Big Ben and 3,300 Westminster clocks during time changes. Commenters spar over the date being wrong and whether Big Ben is the bell or the clock, while others drop tour tips and jokes—proof that timekeeping is serious business and great internet drama.
London’s clock whisperer Andrew Strangeway cycles over Westminster Bridge at sunrise to tweak Big Ben and 3,300 Westminster clocks by hand — and the comments instantly turned into a time war. The crowd loved the romance of it all, with one fan deadpanning, “no man can stop the march of time,” while others swooned over the 334-step climb and the cracked bell’s iconic, slightly flat note.
Then the drama struck: a correction bomb dropped — “Time change was last week in London :)” — sparking a mini skirmish over dates, time zones, and whether anyone’s calendar app can be trusted. Pedants stormed in to declare, “Big Ben is the bell, not the clock,” citing the article itself, and suddenly the vibe shifted from awe to semantics cage match. Meanwhile, practical commenters chimed in with insider tips: take the 11 a.m. tour and catch all twelve bongs at noon — very “Hacker News does field trip.”
The meme energy peaked when someone asked if Andrew sets Westminster by a tiny yellow handheld: the Playdate. Cue jokes about Britain’s most famous timekeeper using a gamer toy to wrangle history. Between romance, nitpicks, and bong-counting flexes, the internet turned clock care into a spectacle — exactly on schedule.
Key Points
- •Andrew Strangeway has been the custodian and clock mechanic of the Great Clock since 2023.
- •He adjusts time across 3,300 clocks in the Palace of Westminster, including 300 heritage and 2,000–3,000 quartz clocks and centralized systems.
- •His work intensifies when clocks go back on the last Sunday of October, noted as Sunday, October 26.
- •He begins work before 7am, cycles over Westminster Bridge, and climbs 334 steps to the clock.
- •Big Ben’s bell is cracked due to a heavy iron hammer used in 1862, giving it a slightly flat E natural tone; the 13.5‑tonne bell shows a repair hole.