How to use the online alarm clock
Four in the morning is when Billingsgate opens and the fish trade gets going, and when the first bakery shifts are pulling trays out for shops that open at seven. It is also the hour the earliest airport runs begin: a six o'clock departure from Stansted or Luton means checking in around four, which in turn means an alarm considerably earlier than most people's working day.
In midsummer this hour is not dark at all. Sunrise in the north of Scotland comes shortly after four in the third week of June, and in Shetland the sky never fully blackens — the long twilight the islands call the simmer dim. In December the same hour is as dark as the middle of the night everywhere in the country.
Farm work follows the same seasonal logic, with milking parlours running early and harvest days starting whenever the weather allows. Every minute of the four o'clock hour is listed separately below, so an alarm for 4:05 am and one for 4:40 am each have their own page.
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