You couldn't make it up: MoD spends £40,000 on calling the speaking clock

Staff at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are so keen to check the time, it seems, that they have made more than 130,000 calls at 30p each over the past two-and-a-half years.

Last year it was reported that the ministry had brought in a ban on ringing 123 and staff had been informed of websites they could use to check the time instead. But even with the ban, the final bill for 2012 was £18,804 and more than £6,000 has already been spent this year. Added to the £15,162 the department spent in 2011, this means the Government department has spent more than £40,000 dialing the service, which was first introduced in Britain in 1936.

An MoD spokesman said: "A ban was introduced to our newest telephone network, but due to a technical error with an environmental monitoring system there has been some inadvertent spending on the speaking clock which has now been stopped.

"Overall spend on this has decreased from more than £15,000 in 2011 to just £6,000 this year since the ban was introduced."

The speaking clock service has never been a free service. In the early days, calls cost one penny from home and two pence from a phone box. It used to be called Tim because to access it, you dialled the first three letters of the word "time".

In 2007, Sara Mendes da Costa won a competition to become the fourth permanent voice for the speaking clock in a BT competition that raised £200,000 for BBC Children In Need.