Clocks go forward Sunday March 31st

[ciphergoth]

I mention this because I found an interesting website, thanks to lapis_lazuli:

http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/index.html

If we adopted the "Double Summer Time" proposal, by which the clocks are set to GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in summer, then we'd effectively be in the same timezone as the rest of the EU...

Comments

[adjectivegail]

thanks for the heads up, i never know when these things happen! *makes note in diary*
interesting idea, that, the double summer time thing. it wouldn't start getting dark at 3pm in winter then, would it? which could only be a good thing...

[akicif.livejournal.com]

This suggestion comes up every now and again (I've memories of it being done during the seventies oil crisis/petrol rationing era). It's positively lovely for folk dahn sahf, but the road accident rate in Scotland and Northern Ireland went up somewhat, to say the least.

Of course, if we introduced a +1 on the timezone and adjusted school hours separately (I've a feeling this was a Scottish Tory compromise -- or was it the SNats when they were 'tartan Tories'?), then you don't get so many schoolkids run over, but it becomes somewhat harder for working parents to be useful members of the workforce (hey, maybe that was a win from the Tory point of view)...

[lovingboth]

Part of Jeffrey Archer's manifesto for Mayor of London was to campaign for this for London at least.

The objections usually come from people in the north of Scotland complaining that they'd have to get up in the dark during winter. The idea that no matter what you actually call the time, the further north you go, the shorter the winter days, does not seem to have occurred to them.

[nitoda]

I actually remember going to school during the experimental winter - seeing the dawn rise as we sat at our desks was ... odd ... to say the least. I do think it is unreasonable for children to have to go to school in the dark and come home in the dark if it is avoidable. SAD affects so many of us these days. Perhaps we could adjust the school (and work?) day so that it is longer in summer and shorter in winter so we could always have some leisure time in the sunlight? Don't suppose that would prove a popular move, somehow ;-(

[babysimon]

Part of Jeffrey Archer's manifesto for Mayor of London was to campaign for this for London at least.

London in a different time zone from the south east? Fantastic!

"The next statiion is Rickmansworth. The local time is 3:16 pm. This is a Metropolitan Line train calling at all stations to Amersham."

And they say Mr Archer lacks imagination. I *never* would have thought of that.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

That idea did occur - hence the 'compromise' on school hours mentioned above (incidentally, it was 'north of Scotland' for values of 'north' equal to about Berwick and Carlisle). We're quite used to the more extreme diurnal variation in North Britain (ah, those summer evenings when it's still light enough to sit outside close to closing time), but it does make a difference when in the day the actual daylight occurs. Shifting road accidents from the evening to the morning isn't socially neutral - there are more children on the roads in the morning (oops, there goes my adfp membership card) than in the evenings. Not to mention that the time distribution of people commuting to work is skewed so that in the mornings most roads are more busy for a shorter time than in the evenings...

But I see I'm beginning to rant, and I don't want to turn this into a religious debate, so I'll shaddup.

(useful URLs: Global Ideas Bank on the subject, Mayer interviewed and finally something from Our Beloved Government that actually has some useful info in it.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

As akicif points out, it does make a measurable difference to road accident rates. To avoid it, you'd need to adjust business and school hours, which negates the point of the time zone shift.

The solution, says the card-carrying SNP member, is an independent Scotland and separate time zones for the two countries, assuming the Scottish business community is content with that.

On the other hand, wonders the curious intellectual, how do the other Scandinavian countries manage? (Yes, for some purposes I do consider Scotland to be Scandinavian).

[zotz]

Double summer time? If it's that important, why can't we just start work at eight instead? It's like making inches shorter because people aren't tall enough.

[babysimon]

Better still, octuple summer time! Then we could be on the same time zone as Japan.

[zotz]

Yes! If we make it complicated enough, then everyone would be so confused that we wouldn't have to go to work at all.

I think we have a winner

[babysimon]

Did I mention that my employers are currently looking for a mission statement?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'm not advocating it, I'm just wondering if we're going to see it pitched as an EU harmonisation thing.

of course it would suit me since I work with people in Berlin! But that's not really a good reason...

Re: I think we have a winner

[zotz]

Where did they last see it?

[ex-meta.livejournal.com]

I've got a better idea. Let's get rid of the whole stupid thing, and just have a "going to work earlier" season.

In fact, let's get rid of all time zones while we're at it, and settle on GeT/UTC.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nikki/]

Eh, it's all pointless to me because I'm crap at keeping track of time, I wake up when I wake up and I sleep when I sleep.. Recently I've been getting up at 4am, sleeping at 4pm (I sleep 12 hours @_@)

I can never remember when it goes to BST from GMT, the other day I realised it should happen soon and sat changing the date in Windows date/time settings until it changed... I'm sad.