We’ve already established many times that I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, haven’t we?

Pretty much every time I open my mouth, I sense people around me casting worried glances at each other.

Glances that say: “There goes poor old Damian again – he’s got no idea, has he?”

Those who love me, worry about me.

Others simply pat me on the head and move on.

Occasionally my stupidity will result in a smack up the side of the head and the suggestion “Wake up to yourself” ... but I don’t see Mum as much as I once did.

It’s important that we establish these facts before I go any further because there might be some new readers out there who are looking for a bit of high-brow conversation – something a little mentally stimulating.

I wouldn’t want them to waste any more of their valuable leisure time, would I?

I like to warn new readers what they’re in for before they blindly plough ahead.

Call it a community service if you like, but I think it’s only fair.

Anyone who’s been a reader of this column for a while is, by definition, already brain dead and can continue reading until they get distracted by a butterfly or something.

It’s important you understand that I’m a bit dim because it might explain my confusion today.

You see, I’ve just been reading about some bloke who’s invented the world’s weirdest clock.

What makes this clock really unusual is that it doesn’t actually tell the time.

You heard me. This genius has invented a clock which doesn’t tell you what time of day it is.

If you understand this concept, please go away now as you are much smarter than me and I have no further use for you.

The rest of you, try to keep up ... and stop dribbling on yourselves.

Apparently the role of the “Corpus clock”, which was recently unveiled at Corpus Christi College in England, is not to tell the time but to “disorient, dazzle and remind people of their own mortality”.

It doesn’t make coffee.

It doesn’t wake you up with the six o’clock news.

It doesn’t even ring a pretty chime every half-hour.

Nope. It disorients, dazzles and reminds one of one’s own mortality.

Sort of like a wife.

Only it doesn’t cook ... or clean ... or iron.

Or tell the time, apparently.

This clock thing cost about a million pounds to put together and has been lauded as “blasting away all preconceptions about timepieces”.

It has no hands and is specially designed to run in erratic fashion, slowing down and speeding up from time to time.

Uh-huh.

The last time I had a clock like that I threw the bloody thing in the bin and picked up a new one for a couple of bucks at a bargain shop.

Once the hands come off and it stops telling the time, I find it’s pretty useless as a clock.

I sort of understand the concept.

I’ve got an old lawnmower at home that hasn’t worked for years.

It couldn’t cut itself shaving but I still call it a lawnmower.

The big difference is, you don’t see me trotting it out as something which disorients and dazzles and whatever else they said.

It just sits there, getting in the way.

“Clocks are boring. They just tell the time, and people treat them as boring objects,” said the bloke who invented this thing.

“This clock actually interacts with you.”

Yeah mate, but it doesn’t tell me the bloody time. Does it?

Apparently, every now and then a heavy chain makes a clanking noise as it falls into a coffin, which then loudly bangs closed.

But it happens at random times, which is hardly useful.

So I don’t feel reminded of my own mortality.

Just ripped off.

And late for work.

But I can always tell the boss I was disoriented and dazzled by my new clock.