Country Style Clocks

More companies adopt 'summer time' hours to save energy

A growing number of companies are introducing "summer time," which has employees starting and ending their work days from 30 minutes to an hour earlier than usual.

The practice of daylight saving time, in which clocks are advanced one hour forward, has been practiced in many Western nations for decades, but has never been officially adopted in Japan.

This year, however, many companies are introducing their own daylight saving time systems without the backing of the central government as part of measures to conserve electricity.

Starting in June, major beverage maker Ito En Ltd. began letting the employees in its Tokyo main office end their workdays at 4:30 p.m. instead of the usual 5:30 p.m.

A male employee and baseball fan said that he likes the earlier hours because he gets home in time to watch the Hanshin Tigers on TV.

"That's one of the advantages of the new summer time," he said.

Morinaga Milk Industry Co. introduced earlier hours on March 28 because of the rolling blackouts implemented by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

"If we stay in the office until late at night, we cannot go home. So we introduced the summer time as a last-ditch measure," said an official of the company's public relations division.

After the introduction, the system spread to other companies as an electricity-saving measure.

A major diaper maker, Unicharm Corp., started summer time in May.

"We suffered damages in our factory in Fukushima Prefecture so electricity was necessary for the immediate recovery of the plant. So we introduced the summer time system from a sense of crisis," said an official of the firm's PR division.

Nissan Motor Co. plans to introduce summer time in its head office and development centers from July through September. To save electricity, the carmaker will move forward the regular working hours by 30 minutes to one hour.

Japan has considered adopting daylight saving time in the past. In 2008, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda called for its introduction as part of measures to prevent global warming. After he resigned as prime minister, however, the plan was forgotten.

The current government, headed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, is opposed to daylight saving time, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said it would be too costly to implement nationwide.

According to an Asahi Shimbun survey conducted of top 100 companies from late May to early June, however, 21 firms replied that they introduced or will introduce summer time hours.

Large Wall Clocks | Kitchen Factors.com

Kitchens need large wall clocks. Look at it this way: there is really no other place you need to know the time as urgently as in your kitchen. Oh sure, you can use the tiny digital time-tellers on your oven or microwave, but you still need something that you can glance at in a fraction of a second with a graceful half-turn of the head while your hands are mired deep in pizza dough–without standing six inches away from your hot oven and squinting.

And yes, kitchen timers will tell you when to check on your pot roast and the microwave will beep when it’s ready, but only large wall clocks will make your kitchen look more beautiful while telling you that five minutes is enough to add more sprinkles to your cupcakes before you need to start setting the table. Timers can’t do that.

In the digital age, clock faces have become something more then merely utilitarian. They are now quaint reminders of simpler days when we were not so constantly wired into our gadget network, when our visual sense was not so overwhelmed with tiny images and our awareness of time passing was symbolized by a black wand moving ever so slowly around a perfect circle.

Clock faces have become more rare in our lives and therefore more attractive and interesting. But unless you have checked recently, you have no idea of just how interesting. There are enough styles to blend in and accentuate the existing décor of any kitchen, whether your own style is centered on antique/ vintage, sleek and contemporary, robust farm-style country, muted simplicity or traditional comfort. The right clock not only adds a decorative touch to your kitchen -– it can become the finishing touch, the completion of a wall that needed something both beautiful and functional, the golden combination that kitchen accessories strive to fulfill.

Most kitchens do not have unlimited wall space for décor, so large wall clocks fit perfectly into tight, constrained areas.

A Style to Match Every Kitchen

When you start looking for styles of large wall clocks, it’s best not to depend on categories alone. Sometimes what a retailer calls “traditional” can resemble anything from ancient Roman days to the 1950s.

“Retro” generally means 1960s and 1970s these days, so if your own definition is 1940s, you would do better perusing “traditional” choices.

The “modern” style of large wall clocks can be almost anything -– exotically unique, outrageously ornamental or sleek and minimalist. Here you will have the most options for combining wall art with time-telling functions.

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Our country's wealth and influence, Shown by tracing in historical form from year to year and decade to decade, from 1620 to 1880, the rapid increase of population, and progress in the development of our ... resources ...

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