Transcriptional control is an important regulator of circadian time-keeping; however, the role of post-transcriptional control in this process remains to be fully elucidated. Now, two studies in Drosophila melanogaster show that Ataxin-2 (Atx2) promotes the translation of Period (Per) — a crucial driver of circadian rhythms — in circadian pacemaker neurons. Both studies found that RNAi-mediated knockdown of Atx2 expression in circadian pacemaker neurons lengthened the circadian periods of locomotor behaviour of flies that were kept under constant darkness and also increased the arrhythmicity of these periods. Further investigation revealed that these effects were associated with a decrease in the abundance of Per. The protein Twenty-four (Tyf) is known to activate Per translation. Both studies found that Atx2 and Tyf can be found together in protein complexes and that Atx2 is required for Tyf-induced translation of Per.