When time stopped, it came as quite a surprise to just about everyone. What was happening? Had the world stopped turning? Was the country going to remain in a permanent daytime? Were people going to have to live on planes that flew round the world constantly just to satisfy their need for a routine? Was money in bank accounts still earning interest?

One man not surprised - and therefore not contemplating such dilemmas - was Barry Castor. However, as he was in the process of teaching somebody how to drive he couldn't rest on his laurels. His pupil did find it something of a shock though, and the car would have run into the back of a bus had Barry not jumped on the dual controls.
     Sitting in the traffic jam, Barry reflected that he had been expecting it (the stoppage of time, that is, not nearly colliding with a bus). The clock in his car had failed to go round for... well, he didn't know how long because it had stopped telling the time. But it had stopped, and he'd spent the best part of his thirty years as a driving instructor telling people it was going to happen. Upon further reflection, Barry guessed this might have had something to do with him being unable to afford to live in his house anymore.
     "Time's stopped," said Laura, his confused student.
     "You know what you did wrong there, don't you?"
     "Time's stopped," she repeated, like she was beginning to accept it.
     "You almost hit a bus."
     Laura looked at him. "Time has stopped. TIME HAS STOPPED!"
     "So it has," said Barry, realising he couldn't ignore the fact any longer.
     "Just like you said it would."
     "Did I?" The glow of smugness was well concealed from public view.

Not that the public was looking. It would spoil nothing to say that there was a reasonable amount of panic going on. It would spoil even less to say that, naturally, time restarted itself fairly soon afterwards and the only ones who could offer any kind of explanation were those people for whom ‘apocalypse' was a word to be used on a daily basis.