The last hour of a working day is the slowest one, and watching it pass only makes that worse. A live countdown to 4:42 pm at least turns an open-ended wait into a figure that moves, updating every second whether or not the afternoon feels like it is going anywhere.
Because the count reads straight from your device's clock, its accuracy rests on that clock being right, time zone included. Phones and computers normally handle this themselves, so in practice the figure here lines up with whatever time the device is already showing elsewhere on screen.
Rail and bus timetables across Britain are printed in 24-hour time, which is why 16:42 is the version that matters when checking a departure against a board or a printed sheet. This page shows 4:42 pm for everyday reading and 16:42 alongside it, so the two can be matched without any mental arithmetic.
Common questions
Which clock does it use?
Your own. It reads the local time and time zone from the device you are looking at, so the figure reflects where you actually are rather than a fixed zone written into the page.
Will this alert me when the time arrives?
No. It is a live number rather than an alarm — nothing rings, buzzes or notifies you at zero. If you need to be interrupted at 4:42 pm, set an alarm as well and treat this page as the running total.
Is it affected by the clocks changing?
Only in the sense that your device is. When the change between GMT and BST happens at the end of March and October, the device adjusts and the countdown follows it without anything to do here.
What is 16:42 in the 12-hour clock?
That is 4:42 pm, or eighteen minutes to five in the evening if you are saying it aloud. From 13:00 onwards, subtracting twelve gives the pm figure — the same moment written three different ways.
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