Clocks Back Tonight

[Si-Co]

A wee bit of info taken from the BBC website:

Why Change the Clocks?
Our clocks go forward at 0100 on a Sunday in March and back in October. So the simple question is: Why?

It happens twice a year. We all change our clocks and watches by one hour. In the spring, we add an hour, and go onto what is called British Summer Time, while in the autumn, we do the reverse, and adhere to Greenwich Mean Time.

Why bother?

It's all to do with saving the hours of daylight, and was started by a chap called William Willett, a London builder, who lived in Petts Wood in Kent.

Basically, he reckoned that you could improve the population's health and happiness by putting forward the clocks by twenty minutes every Sunday in April and do the opposite in September.

Economies

His idea was not taken up, even though a 'Daylight Saving Bill' was introduced some five years before the outbreak of World War One. But once the war started, it was considered prudent to economise, to promote greater efficiency in using daylight hours, and in the use of artificial lighting. And so in 1916, 'Daylight Saving Time' was introduced.

Even though most countries abandoned this after that war, some eventually decided that it was a good idea, and most of these nations began to keep it throughout the year.

Experiment

Since 1972, Britain has decided to go with Greenwich Mean Time in winter, and British Summer Time in Summer. But back in 1968, Britain tried a four-year experiment by advancing time one hour ahead of GMT throughout the year.

But those living further north, particularly in Scotland, found it most unsatisfactory, with dark mornings for much of the year, and the experiment was dropped.

But the arguments rage on....and on.

[Cheese Head]

Is that because the water goes the wrong way round the toilet down there?

Yep.

Except at Christmas on Great Keppel Island, but you'll have to ask Cheesey about that!

I havnt been to Great Keppel Island in years. im suprised youve heard about it! its a great place, the sand is white and the sea is blue.

Australian time zone is a little silly. In QLD, we dont get DST either way. I dont know for the other states, i dont know where id find out.

How did you get to here about great keppel island anyhoo? dont tell me that you just found it on google on something lol ill be very disapointed.

[Nick Harvey]

the sand is white and the sea is blue.

And, back in the seventies, the t-shirts had "I got layed on Great Keppel Island" printed on the back.

[PutneyMatt]

Is that because the water goes the wrong way round the toilet down there?

Yep.

Except at Christmas on Great Keppel Island, but you'll have to ask Cheesey about that!

I havnt been to Great Keppel Island in years. im suprised youve heard about it! its a great place, the sand is white and the sea is blue.

Australian time zone is a little silly. In QLD, we dont get DST either way. I dont know for the other states, i dont know where id find out.

Try here

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

[tweetypie]

I seen talk in a newspaper recently that the government were thinking of changing the change from 1 hour to back and forward 2 hours instead to make it lighter at night and in the morning. They were going to trial it only in Scotland but having Scotland out of the same timezone as England would be very confusing - especially for the Scots watching the wrong time on GMTV. Perhaps that is why red tape surrounds the idea but I wouldn't be surprised if they do it sooner or later anyway.

[Aston]

I seen talk in a newspaper recently that the government were thinking of changing the change from 1 hour to back and forward 2 hours instead to make it lighter at night and in the morning. They were going to trial it only in Scotland but having Scotland out of the same timezone as England would be very confusing - especially for the Scots watching the wrong time on GMTV. Perhaps that is why red tape surrounds the idea but I wouldn't be surprised if they do it sooner or later anyway.

Yes, let's not have a different time zone in Scotland because it would cause havock with TV station clocks Get a grip!

It's an interesting debate, I don't really understand the farmer thing, why don't they just get up an hour earlier instead?! Also, there's something of a traditionalist inside me that wants to keep GMT alive because it's the time that all clocks around the world is measured by. However, that's almost as silly a reason as not changing because it would be "confusing" for those watching TV...

[Si-Co]

I seen talk in a newspaper recently that the government were thinking of changing the change from 1 hour to back and forward 2 hours instead to make it lighter at night and in the morning. They were going to trial it only in Scotland but having Scotland out of the same timezone as England would be very confusing - especially for the Scots watching the wrong time on GMTV. Perhaps that is why red tape surrounds the idea but I wouldn't be surprised if they do it sooner or later anyway.

Or they could play everything out 'on delay' so there'd me no such thing as 'live' networked shows in Scotland. It happens in Oz, for example, WA gets 'live' programmes 2-3 hours later than the eastern states.

No thanks!

[James Martin]

Yeah, it wouldn't be difficult. Actually STV could become an ITV affiliate quite easily rather than be a part of the ITV network, like Southern Cross and GWN do with Seven in Australia.

If only Scotland went GMT then they may have a similar situation to Seven & Southern Cross, where they'd have to be at least one episode behind on stuff like Corrie or Emmerdale, as it would be 6.30/6pm in England/Wales/NI. With taking the availability of STV on Sky into account then this would be even more important.

Southern Cross in Tasmania for example are at least a week behind mainland Australia with big shows such as Home & Away.

Live shows wouldn't REALLY be an issue with only 1 hour difference happening.

I really do think that the England/Wales/NI BST & D-BST and Scotland GMT/BST (or even constant GMT) idea NEEDS to be experimented with for three years.

[cwathen]

Personally, I see little point in the change, I'd rather stay with BST all the time (although obviously if we did that it would need to be called something else).

In the final days of BST, (where I live anyway) it gets dark at around 6PM, and gets light at around 7:30AM. By the time of the changeover, the rate at which the hours of daylight reduce has slowed, and won't reduce much more until they start drawing out again in late December.

When we change back to GMT, we're suddenly thrown into this nasty world of it being pitch black by 5PM, and although it then gets light before 7AM, I'd wager that most people have greater use for an extra hour of light in the early evening than they do at an hour of the morning when most people are still fast asleep.

The 'farmers milking their cows in daylight' argument is IMO not sufficient reason to bring darkness an hour earlier for the whole country (and on a sidenote - why do farmers get so much consideration? They're allready allowed to trundle around at 20MPH on public roads in vehicles which are wholey unsuitable for such use (tractors should be banned outright from national speed limit roads, and should not be allowed on any roads during peak hours), why on earth should their needs be of such great consideration that time itself changes?).

There is also not a huge historical precedence to cause the present system to carry on - the current system has only been in use for around 30 years - it can easily change.

[Nick Harvey]

I'd rather stay with BST all the time (although obviously if we did that it would need to be called something else).

Actually, that was the easy bit when they did the trial of staying forward all year round.

They left it called BST, but told people it stood for "British Standard Time".

[Pete]

it's horrible being dark at 5. I hate it.

Why can't we put them forward in the winter.