The Scots keep saying they are a separate country, let them decide for themselves, for the rest of us? synchronise with Europe.
Its not as stupid as it sounds, plenty of countries have varying time zones.
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As a Scot, albeit no longer a resident one, I still don't hold with the objection to darker mornings. Far better to have lighter evenings if possible at a number of levels. People on average have more free time in the early evening than in the early mornings. Children could play out longer, adults could attend to tasks outside their properties etc.
As for road safety, I would argue conversely that I'd rather any driving to be done in the dark were done proportionately more by people who have just had a night's sleep than by those who are tired after a day's work.
Bring it on I say. It would suit me better on a commercial level too as I speak daily to colleagues in Italy and the hour difference loses valuable communication time. I'm all for the change.
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I don't think changing the time back and forth twice a year is actually beneficial. I'm sure it just disrupts people's sleeping and eating times far more than leaving it alone would. In winter it is positively dangerous as you go from light evenings to pitch black. Much better to lose the light levels gradually in my opinion. Move it to BST and call it GMT +1 and leave it there all year round. Scotland could be free to stay on GMT in winter if they wanted.
The whole notion of gaining daylight is rubbish. The number of daylight hours are exactly the same regardless of what you do to beggar about with the clocks.
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>>
>> The whole notion of gaining daylight is rubbish. The number of daylight hours are exactly
>> the same regardless of what you do to beggar about with the clocks.
Shh don't tell 'em, papers and tv won't be able to regurge all the same stuff twice a year!
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>> I don't think changing the time back and forth twice a year is actually beneficial.
>> The whole notion of gaining daylight is rubbish. The number of daylight hours are exactly
>> the same regardless of what you do to beggar about with the clocks.
Agreed. It's just another stupid human intervention with the natural order of things. Leave the time the same all year round. Of course it won't happen - we have to over complicate things one way or another.
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But there have been fears expressed in Scotland that putting the clocks forward would increase road accidents in the darker mornings.
Come on can't we drive when it's dark, Us night shift workers have to cope.!!
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I'm with teabelly - what he say's sums up my thoughts exactly.
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Aligning time with central Europe is a good thing. I don't need to adjust my watch when I'm on holiday.
Keeping same time throughout the year [either GMT or BST] is even better as I don't have to adjust dozens of watches twice every year.
Instead of fiddling with time every time, it will be more sensible to arrange school timing differently at different seasons of the year.
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Putting the clocks back in Autumn and forward in Spring, effects our circadian rhythm,
In some people the effect can be severe and last for several weeks.
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>> Putting the clocks back in Autumn and forward in Spring, effects our circadian rhythm,
>>
>> In some people the effect can be severe and last for several weeks.
>>
They had better not fly too far east or west then.
Flying effects me, I just sleep it off.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 20 Feb 11 at 19:07
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Never ceases to amaze me the fuss we make/are making in this country about the time.
If the Scots, or the Welsh or the Northern Irish for that matter, want to have a different time zone then why should that have any more effect than us being different to the rest of Europe.
America has different time zones and seems to get by as does Russia. And if you want to see a real mish-mash of time zones have a look at Australia some states have 30 minute time differences and some states have daylight saving time but others don't and this can apply to adjacent states not necessarily those on opposite sides of a vast country.
I can understand the old reasons for farmers wanting the daylight at certain times of the day as animals such as dairy cattle go by their body clocks rather than a couple of pointy bits of metal on a dial. However for the rest of us surely we can just adjust our day to fit around the daylight as we need to, when I worked with some external workers back in 70's they used to change working hours when the clocks changed, changed to a 30 minute lunch break from an hour and finished 30 minutes earlier as it got dark before the end of the working day to try and keep as many productive hours in the day as possible; in the real depths of winter they also moved from a five day to five and half day week by working an extra 45 minutes less on the five days and coming in on Saturday morning for 4 hours or so. So it can be done if we have the will to do it.
The other argument that we get from the schools about the children going to school in the dark holds little water for me as many of the schools locally have, over recent years, steadily moved the start of the schoolday forward, one of our local primary schools starts at 08:00 and one of our nearby secondary schools is about the same time, with a corresponding move of the end of day. If it is so important for schoolchildren to travel in daylight then perhaps alternative attendance times should be looked at as well?
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"Aligning time with central Europe is a good thing."
Not according to Hitchens in the Daily Mail. In an absurdly xenophobic article he claims it is a plot by the EU, as the political successors to the Third Reich.
"But it is easy to see that since 1893, when Kaiser Wilhelm II’s arrogant and expansionist new German Empire adopted Mitteleuropaische Zeit (Central European Time to you), German power has been forcing its ideas of time on the rest of the Continent. First in 1914, and with redoubled force after 1940, the conquered nations of the Continent were instructed rather sharply to shift their clocks forward to suit the needs of German soldiers and German railways and German business.
A map of the present Central European Time Zone looks disturbingly like a map of a certain best-forgotten empire of 70 years ago. Would it really be silly to suspect that the neatness and standardisation fanatics of Brussels and Frankfurt, who have abolished almost every border in Europe, devised the European arrest warrant and the Euro passport and the European number plate and the European flag – and imposed a single currency on almost every state – would not also like a single time zone?"
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sun 20 Feb 11 at 19:20
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>> Not according to Hitchens in the Daily Mail. In an absurdly xenophobic article he claims
>> it is a plot by the EU, as the political successors to the Third Reich.
Ironic when you consider that the Mail's founders would have been delighted to have been part of the Third Reich.
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...Ironic when you consider that the Mail's founders would have been delighted to have been part of the Third Reich...
Quite a few others, too.
But does it mean anything 70+ years later?
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"But does it mean anything 70+ years later?"
Not really - the current views of the Daily Mail will seem equally absurd to future generations.
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>> But does it mean anything 70+ years later?
Yes, an organisation's DNA is quite strong. It's history stands for much and is always relevant.
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...It's history stands for much and is always relevant...
Only when it suits some tired, hackneyed agenda which has been flogged to death on here.
Some organisations may have a 'strong DNA', but newspapers are not the best example.
They need to respond to the readers, which sometimes requires a short memory, just as those who seek to knock them have a long one. :)
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>> Some organisations may have a 'strong DNA', but newspapers are not the best example.
The fact that they have remained right wing and show no signs of adjusting their bias nor their agenda shows that the DNA runs deep enough. As with all newspapers.
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...as with all newspapers...
"Allegiances" can change at General Election time.
I use inverted commas because one of our most successful newspapers, The Sun, has always understood the benefits of backing the winning side.
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I was going to mention the Sun. It appears to be an exception, but isn't. It remains resolutely right wing in its agenda even when backing Labour. A fairly easy job to do when Phoney Tony was in charge of that rabble.
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The Sun is more comfortable in a right wing position, but if a Labour victory looked nailed-on next time, it would back them.
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the Sun will do what's best for Rupert Murdoch.
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...the Sun will do what's best for Rupert Murdoch...
Not such a startling proposition, given he owns it.
A more complex point is The Sun follows public opinion, it doesn't lead it.
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You missed the really complex point.
The Sun tries to appeal to a large section of the population, and then use this as a bargaining chip for whatever government is in power to assist the aims of Rupert Murdoch. That is why it jumps onto the bandwagon of any party likely to take power.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 28 Feb 11 at 18:51
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...You missed the really complex point. The Sun tries to appeal to a large section of the population, and then use this as a bargaining chip for whatever government is in power to assist the aims of Rupert Murdoch. That is why it jumps onto the bandwagon of any party likely to take power...
The way The Sun assists the owner is to flog as many copies as possible to make him the most money.
All that corridors of power stuff exists largely in the minds of armchair theorists.
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Iffy,
I wouldn't suggest that Murdoch seeks to manipulate national politics in the way that Harmsworth & Beaverbrook are said to have tried in the thirties. But when it comes to issues such as diversity of ownership (pariculalry if there's an EU angle) or controls on freedom to print salacious kiss & tell stuff about 'celebs' I'm pretty sure he has passes to the corridors of power.
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>> All that corridors of power stuff exists largely in the minds of armchair theorists.
The sun backed blair and Nulab in exchange for Blair agreeing to keep the UK out of the ERM
Murdoch has a history of hosting private meetings with influential politicians. Both parties describe such meetings as politically insignificant; social events, informal dinners or friendly drinks. It has however been argued that such meetings are significant because of Murdoch's exceptional influence as an international media magnate, as well as his consistent interest in and involvement with political issues
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>> Come on can't we drive when it's dark, Us night shift workers have to cope.!!
Personally, I often find myself in situations where I feel it is safer at night. Specifically when I am trying to emerge from a side road, find almost all of the road obscured by traffic parked almost up to the junction, have to edge out, and find people on the main road barreling along as if the idea of somebody emerging is unthinkable.
At least a night you get a good early warning from their lights.
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The only reason that the UK has a standard time-zone across the country is for to the advantage of the Victorian train network - personally I agree with Humph (when I was working) prefer daylight in the afternoons. Now I prefer it in the mornings..keep the current system !
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I live in N.W. Spain, due South of Waterford in Ireland; so we should be in the UK time zone, (as is Portugal to the South of us). However, as the rest of Spain, we are on CET, so have a fair idea of what will happen if UK moves 1 hour forward - basically everything will gradually start one hour later - here shops open at 10 am., lunch is at 2 pm, pubs start emptying at 9 pm and people go to dinner (and then return for the "evening" session later). Football matches start at 10 pm.
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2 hours clock forward will make time difference with India just 3.5 hours. This will be helpful for lots of big firms where most back office work is outsourced.
Shorter time difference means more overlapping time with offshore. Whether that will help/harm UK economy that is a different discussion though.
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>> Now I prefer (daylight) in the mornings..keep the current system !
I agree with that.
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I like it the way it is. I like the slightly lighter mornings. Changing things would bring me no benefit.
I notice from the article: "a plan to move the clocks in line with most of Europe". So, that's what it's about, then.
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As someone on a "variable shift pattern" it wouldn't make the slightest difference... Can't see why we are different to Europe anyway, bring it on...
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>> As someone on a "variable shift pattern" it wouldn't make the slightest difference...
Then let's have universal global time, then. You'll be all right, Jack...
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>> Then let's have universal global time, then. You'll be all right, Jack...
>>
Nah... "Hobby" time, then I'd be ok!
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The difference from Europe is that we're a long narrow archipelago oriented N/S & off it's NW coast. It doesn't really make sense to be in the same time zone as Vienna.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 21 Feb 11 at 10:33
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>> The difference from Europe is that we're a long narrow archipelago oriented N/S & off
>> it's NW coast. It doesn't really make sense to be in the same time zone
>> as Vienna.
But most of the UK is on the same longitude as Western France, and Eastern Spain, so it makes perfect sense to be in the same time zone as them.
And it make economic sense to keep all the EU in the same time zone.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 21 Feb 11 at 10:44
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Longitude is one thing zeddo but latitude makes a difference as well. In fact if it wasn't for latitude affecting day length there'd be no need for daylight saving time.
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As far as I know, only Australia varies time zones with an element of latitude.
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>> As far as I know, only Australia varies time zones with an element of latitude.
And I suspect that's to keep time zones in line with state boundaries.
The issue here is that, while the day/night line broadly paralells longitude lines at the equinox it is significantly seperated from them at the solstices. The more so the further towards the pole one goes until the point of perpetual summer day/winter night is met.
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>> The issue here is that, while the day/night line broadly paralells longitude lines at the
>> equinox it is significantly seperated from them at the solstices. The more so the further
>> towards the pole one goes until the point of perpetual summer day/winter night is met.
The further north you get the more rapidly it becomes pointless.
Why have a time zone of any kind when you get 22 hours of daylight.
Light or dark has nothing to do with it when you are dealing with +/- 3 hours. Its simply a matter of commercial convenience.
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Some very large Asian/African countries do not have DST and they all seem to manage quite well.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DaylightSaving-World-Subdivisions.png
Last edited by: movilogo on Mon 21 Feb 11 at 15:07
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>> Some very large Asian/African countries do not have DST and they all seem to manage
>> quite well.
>>
>>
Would it be a sweeping generalisation, looking at that atlas, to say that the countries which do not use Daylight Saving Time are the less well developed, poorer countries of the world?
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>> Would it be a sweeping generalisation, looking at that atlas, to say that the countries
>> which do not use Daylight Saving Time are the less well developed, poorer countries of
>> the world?
No it would not. Neither would it be inaccurate to point out that those never using and those ceased using are closer to the equator. No need for DST if your days & nights are of equalish length all year round.
DST is a response to day length variations at high latitudes (as the wiki article makes clear)
Quite interesting to notice the countries who've tried it and abandoned and the 'rebel' states in Canada/USA that don't follow the crowd.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 21 Feb 11 at 19:31
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>> But most of the UK is on the same longitude as Western France, and Eastern
>> Spain, so it makes perfect sense to be in the same time zone as them.
Most of France and everywhere else in Europe except Portugal and part of Spain is east of Greenwich Meridian whereas most of UK is to its west.
France is far enough south that even in Brest midwinter sunrise is just after 08:00Z (09:00 local); about the same as London. And at that time of year they stay light until nearly 17:30 local. Very different conditions to the north of the UK.
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Worth billions of pounds if clocks are changed ? - Zero
