Another pointless thread

"Double Summertime" seems to be favoured by Londoners who, as usual, can't grasp the concept that the UK stretches as far north as the Shetland Islands.

You cannot alter the total amount of daylight by fiddling with the clocks. I therefore suggest leaving them on GMT and just dealing with the fact that it's dark at different times. If you have to go out after dark then just carry a torch, you can get a very powerful LED one for about the same price as a pint.

As I understand it the point of double summer time is to have an extra hour of daylight in the evening. I was making the point that, in the north, this is of little use if it's too cold to go outside and make use of it.

I think it's about time the EU stopped faffing around and ensured that good and proper GMT is used at all times throughout the continent!

The Russians just "fixed" their timings and I believe scrapped two time zones. Now nine from eleven.

I don't think GMT would go down too well in Scandinavia, eastern Germany, Poland etc.

Or here for that matter. I happen to like GMT+2 just fine and would be happy if they left us on it in the winter too. GMT would mean the sun rises at 3.15 and sets at 20.10 here midsummer which is ridiculous.

In the US it gets confusing as not all states with the same time zoneuse daylight saving. In fact in Arizona it is even more confusing since it doesn't observe daylight saving, but the Navajo nation in the north of the state does. Unless you know which bit you are in it can be very difficult when making appointments.
Then there is Newfoundland and Labrador with it's own odd little time zone - GMT -3.30.

Can't forget our friends down under - NSW & Queensland in same international time zone but one has DST+1 and the other DST+2

Here on Wirral I have set up Bromborough Time - time for a drink,time for bed,time to eat,time for a photo,time for a bath and time for a burble on PUF.

All negotiable and only affected seasonally by sunshine or thirst !

It`s still light at 8-00pm here now - mega ! Another year of hope ahead !

T

I think we should introduce Edinburgh Winter time. In winter you don't have to get up until it's light and you can go home when it gets dark.

Should make for an average day of about 4 hours in winter.

Mind you, we'll need a different system in Summer!

I do wonder if that's the real problem - we've got hours worked confused with work carried out. Our local council offices are stuffed with people working 9am to 5pm every day, but I bet they spend only a fraction of that doing genuinely useful work for the area.

It's not called GMT any more: as a sop to the French, who wanted the Prime Meridian, and therefore the meridian from which time (and navigation) is based, moved to Paris from Greenwich, it was renamed UTC (Temps Universel Coordonné). The initials were rearranged to prevent a well known unions organisation in the UK from getting the idea it was named after them.

Luckily, everyone saw the utter stupidity of having to redraw all the world's maps, but to keep the French happy, they got to give the world time standard a French name: however,it is generally known as Coordinated Universal Time, especially by non-French speaking peoples.
It is regulated by a weighted average of the time kept by over 200 atomic clocks in about 70 national laboratories worldwide. The clocks are compared using satellites.

Most people know it's called UTC now, but still prefer GMT.

And I still don't want to be on UTC/GMT .

I'm shocked Aliengrove. We fly boys all know it's called Zulu!

Yes indeed Zulu time it is! Or just Z for short!

That's all down to a Yank....link

Perhaps it's time to change the phonetic alphabet to be a bit more fun.

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc all sound a little old fashioned. How about Amazon, Britney, Charlize, etc to bring it into the 21st century.

In fact I've lost count of the times I've said Mother instead of Mike!

In this pc age you'd have to alternate boys and girls names.............