Setting the time and date is ?broken?

[Richard Black <rblack@cyberus.ca>]

Hi

in the past I have had no trouble setting my time and date.  Now, alas,
I cannot.  Whenever I reboot, I my calander is a month off and the time
is completely wrong (hours and minutes).

A typical attempt is

rdate time.nist.gov
hwclock --systohc

which _seems_ to work.  But when I reboot, the time and date are
incorrect.  I have also tried using date with similar lack of success.

Two things that I have noticed is that hwclock is slow and hwclock
--show doesn't return anything.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

TIA

Richard