British Summer Time

[matgb]

What she said:

Stupid clocks. Why do they have to change them? It's annoying. I have to get up for bloody work an hour EARLY. And I LIKE it to get dark on a night! Staying light till ten o'clock isn't NATURAL.

I understand why, back in the days of uniform office hours and set factory shifts, that clocks changed a bit. But every time they talk about changing the system, some twunt comes up with a whinge about farmers having to get up when it's dark to go milking (why, because the cows are going to change their clocks?) or similar.

When the colonials did their DST shift a few weekends back, I commented somewhere that the whole idea is hopelessly archaic anyway. Why not have every clock in the world set to GMT, and you get up when it suits you and your employment, and go to bed when it suits you as well? Why should a farmer in Scotland be inconveninced by the desire of an office worker in London to have a nicer evening? Why doesn't the office worker just suggest to their boos that they get to work at 8 and finish at 4.30 instead of 9-5.30?

It's what I used to do at my last job (except, naturally, I started late; mornings? Pah!)

So, how about a new campaign, abolish silly clock changes, and proclaim GMT to be the truly global time, and people can adapt to the idea that noon isn't necessarily at 12pm. Would make a lot of IT related issues a lot simpler as well I suspect.

Comments

[poifaerie.livejournal.com]

But... but.. how... um... yeah, I'm totally in favour of that. Would make New Year a lot easier,, too.

[matgb]

New Year easier? As in it changes date everywhere globally at once? Yup, it would too, that'd be useful.

Earlier I commented somewhere at roughly the same time as another person, saying hte exact same thing; my comment hit at 2am, hers at 12.57am. It looked like I was an hour late, but really it was three minutes, and hers wasn't there when I started typing. Bloody stupid clock changes. Still, at least the PC reminds me each time.

[shaysdays.livejournal.com]

Because then you would have problems with dates being wrong around the world. If you think figuring out how many hours ahead or behind someone is, imgaine trying to figure out when the date starts there- just as much trouble, methinks.

I like Daylight Savings Time. I'm not sure why, I just do. Maybe because I feel like a lift in late winter and seeing the sun when it 'shouldn't' be there makes me happy.

[jantshira.livejournal.com]

aye, there'd be real problems. the same time is not the same time around the world- when it's the middle of the night here, it's lunchtime in oz- and it'd be artificial to try to change that. can you imagine the organisational problems if '6 am' meant early morning in tokyo, mid afternoon in portugal and late evening in russia? 'twould be fine if no-one ever needed to communicate intentaionally, ever again, but... otherwise the concept of tim really would become meaningless, and we'd need god knows how many charts and conversion tables to work out what counted as 'morning' whenever we went on holiday.
the sun moves across the earth in stages. ergo, it's a different part of the day in different places in the same moment. ergo, if 'noon' means 'time when the sun is more or less highest in the sky', time zones must exist, and if time zones must exist you might as well have daylight saving, which is just another time zone but temporal rather than spatial.
having said that, i'm going back to bed for a few hours.

[matgb]

if 'noon' means 'time when the sun is more or less highest in the sky', time zones must exist,

The one does not follow the other though. Noon means midday, but it doesn't have to mean 12pm, it can mean any time of the clock, it'll still be noon.

Basically, it's an organisational thing, the time on the clock oesn't have to mean a thing in terms of what time of day it is, and we already have to deal with time zone differences. If you know it's 6 hours ahead or behind where you are, then you know that you get up at 2am, not 8am, and adjust your rythms accordingly. It's actually easier for travel &c, because you know what time it is back home, and know what times of day it's ok to call.

The only issue is date changeover, but that can be dealt with as well. I reckon this is going to happen the more international communication speeds up, but then, I'm always keen on my ideas.

[matgb]

But from what I can see, having the date change during the working day really wouldn't matter that much, especially as we get more and more computerised, it's just a set of numbers to record when something happened, much better to hae everyone working on the same set of numbers rather than a business in Alaska recording something as a whole day ahead of someone in Russia, despite it happening at the same time.

But then, I've never really liked clocks changing, suspect I never really will.

[singanathema.livejournal.com]

Well you've got me on board. I've actually had debates *cough*arguments*cough* with people in the past about this, which I find both worrying and depressing.
Daylight saving time is a completely pointless exercise now.

[rho]

I was having a conversation with someone a few months ago about daylight saving time, and somehow came to mention the fact that Arizona doesn't observe DST. She said that when she was young, she went to school with someone who had just moved from Arizona. When they all talked about DST to him, he was absolutely convinced that it was just a weird practical joke that everyone was trying to play on him, and that nothing that weird could actually be real. I think that says it all, really.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but when you live in Arizona you have no real need of DST. Live in the Hebrides, and the extra hour really does make a big difference to everyday life.

[rho]

How do you figure? In summer, days are longer in the Hebrides than they are in Arizona.

[(Anonymous)]

Daylight hours != sunshine. :)

[matgb]

But which extra hour? They lose an hour in the mornign and gain it in the evening. If they need the hour, why not just get up an hour earlier?

Why get up at the nationally mandated time, why set office hours at set time. As we move to flexitime generally, we don't need the assumption everyone starts at 9am, so many people don't already.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Why not have every clock in the world set to GMT, and you get up when it suits you and your employment, and go to bed when it suits you as well? Why should a farmer in Scotland be inconveninced by the desire of an office worker in London to have a nicer evening? Why doesn't the office worker just suggest to their boss that they get to work at 8 and finish at 4.30 instead of 9-5.30?

* having dragged self out of bed and away from some very interesting dreams about you *

I am COMPLETELY 100% behind this idea.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

George Bush & Co. decided to make the American DST start a month earlier this year. Something about saving energy and carbon or something like that. Damned if I know how that works.

[matgb]

It doesn't, they just like to think it does. Daft, but there y'go.

It's something to do with longer evenings means less need to have the lights on or something.

[mrblue1966.livejournal.com]

I think it's a wonderful thing this changing the time. It means that my clock is now telling the right time again. It always shows British Summer Time all year long.

In fact there should be British World Time, and everyone has to change their clock except us.

[rho]

I have three clocks in my flat. One is in my bedroom and is permanently set to GMT. One is in my kitchen and is permanently set to BST. The last in on my computer and changes for me automatically.

[matgb]

In fact there should be British World Time, and everyone has to change their clock except us.

well, that's sort of the same thing, but without the cunning spin doctoring.

But yeah, my car closk, which you can only change by pressing a button and it speeds up a lot forward, is set three hours ahead of BST, because I got fed up changing it; the minutes are correct, the rest is irrelevent.

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

It's daft, isn't it? The other thing with the clocks nonsense is that they never seem to advertise it properly; usually the first I know of it happening is when I find my computer has reset itself on startup.

I started putting all of mine back last night (I'll be stuffed if I'm doing it at one in the morning!!) then got bored of that and went to bed, so I've still got three left to do.

[matgb]

I still haven't bothered with a few of mine, despite having a very small place, I have 5 things that can tell the time that aren't my computer. Ah well, watch and phone will get done when they matter.

[cyril-squirel.livejournal.com]

I hate changing clocks it really fucks with my head,all that now its light now it isn't, is nasty nasty nasty. Yes the seasons change but it would be nice to change with them and not have these sudden jumps.
And yes it would be great to choose when to work, my personal choice would be never.

[matgb]

Well, yes, I'd like the never option, but then there's the whole needing money thing.

[cyril-squirel.livejournal.com]

damn i knew i'd missed something i wonder if they'll let me have my job back.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I suspect it'd cause problems of the International Date Line and stuff, y'know?

And also using GMT is desperately post-imperialist.

Plus most bosses aren't as keen on flexitime as you might think. :-(

[matgb]

Covered above; it'd make things easier once you got used to it, we're talking, essentially, adopting UST the world over, partially to make cross border communication easier, etc.

There's no real reason why the date changing during the day would be any worse than the date being different in different parts of the globe as is now. And if we had to use a different timezone, fine,but GMT/UST is the international standard, even the Yanks use it for stuff, so might as well go with what works.

And yeah, I was lucky on the flexi thing, but even if the boss wants everyone to arrive at the same time, there's no reason why that has to be 9am for every single business. Then, being a firm advocate of co-operative systems of ownership, bosses would have to answer to employees eventually...