It's the 12th day of 12th month of the 12th year.....

Actually, no, it isn't. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is maintained by the USA and France -- I suspect that UTC was chosen since it matches neither the English nor the French names.Though it's possible that that atomic clock in Oxford is a lower-stratum time reference that's used by the UK, though which still needs to be synched to the real time reference.