Beware the time-eater: Cambridge University's clock

It's gold, features six patented inventions … and has fangs.

For all its apparent eccentricity, the clock is based on solidly traditional clockwork - unusual in these days of digital electronic clocks. It has taken seven years' research and construction, incorporates six patented inventions, and is predicted to run for at least 250 years assuming the world lasts that long.

"It is terrifying, it is meant to be", said John Taylor, the creator and funder of an extraordinary new clock unveiled on 19 September 2008 by Stephen Hawking at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. "Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next. It's not a bad thing to remind students of. I never felt like this until I woke up on my 70th birthday, and was stricken at the thought of how much I still wanted to do, and how little time remained."
Christopher de Hamel, an expert on medieval manuscripts and Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi, described the clock as "hypnotically beautiful - and deeply disturbing".

The monster momentarily stops the turning dial with its foot to mark the minutes, shown as blue LED lights shining through slots. It was originally conceived by Taylor as a literal interpretation of the grasshopper escapement invented by his hero, the Georgian clockmaker John Harrison whose fabulously accurate mechanisms solved the problem of establishing longitude at sea.

The creature, modelled by sculptor Matthew Sanderson, was inspired by medieval armour and gradually became more ominous: part-lizard, part-stag beetle, a Chronophage – time eater.