When you leapt of bed this morning how did you feel?

Did you punch the air and bellow “yes, another day another chance to excel” or did you slide from the covers with a face that would scare the cat and then slowly amble to the bathroom scratching yourself like some sort of plague victim.

Yes, I did too.

The reason I ask is that you’re a bit older than you were yesterday morning. And I don’t mean just 24 hours.

You’re actually 24 hours and one second older.

At 11:59pm and 59 seconds it didn’t turn to midnight, it actually turned to 11:59 and 60 seconds.

You enjoyed a leap second without even thinking about it.

It was the longest day for three years since the last leap second in 2012.

But why on earth do we need them?

It turns out the earth’s rotation isn’t quite regular enough to set your watch to. That is if your watch is an atomic clock, which I presume it isn’t by the dint of the fact that people in Huddersfield don’t tend to have glow-in-the-dark wrists.

The leap second brings the Earth and time back together again.

However, there’s been a few problems over the years as computers can sometimes struggle to catch up.

Last time Reddit and LinkedIn struggled to cope while Australian airline Qantas ended up going to manual – rather than computerised – check-in for flights.

Basically, most computers will be able to adjust and take account of the leap second – but some may throw a wobbly as they’re not really configured to expect it.

If you needed to send an unpleasant email 11:59:60 was the time to send it – there’s a chance that emails sent at that time may not be received as that time doesn’t actually exist.

Google made available a ‘smear’ that fooled computers into making the seconds before it slightly longer so therefore they didn’t need the extra one or other systems just told the computers to ignore it.

If you’re reading this then I presume nothing bad happened to the Examiner – or it may be a scrap of paper that you’re reading in a post-apocalyptic netherworld some time in the future.

You may think you’re the last person left on earth but I could guarantee that you’d stumble across a well-stocked Tesco local and some mutants putting up a sign telling you they were opening a Subway sandwich shop soon.

I guess the question you’re now asking yourself (presuming you’re not in the post-apocalyptic world outlined above) is why don’t we just do away with the leap second?

It sounds like it’s good old British obstinacy – we’re in charge of time and we don’t want to lose our pre-eminent global position away by being a second out.

Experts at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London, were responsible for adding the extra second to UK time.

Which is some job to be fair. Imagine explaining that to the kids: “What did you do at work today Daddy?”

“I altered the whole world’s relationship with time.”

That’s something to brag about at parties.

Dr Peter Whibberley, senior research scientist with the Time and Frequency group at NPL, said: “There are consequences of tinkering with time. Because leap seconds are only introduced sporadically it is difficult to implement them in computers and mistakes can cause systems to fail temporarily.

“However, we have always taken the Earth’s rotation as the ultimate reference for timekeeping and astronomers and navigators still make use of it. We shouldn’t break the link without carefully weighing the consequences.”

Do you think they get drunk on the Christmas do and stick an extra second on just for a laugh? You never know, it could be half and hour later than your watch says it is.