BS: British Summer Time again

Subject: BS: British Summer Time again
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 03:32 PM

Today is the start of British Summer Time - I think the concept was invented in WWI and just hung around.I'm fed up of having to go all round the house putting the clocks forward in Spring! It's only a few months ago since I was running round putting them all back for the winter. Can't we just stay on BST for the whole year? We're always told that we have to go onto winter time because the Scottish farmers will have too short a day to work in. Well, now that the Scots have devolution, can't they have their own time zone too? No offence intended to Scottish catters, but I think it would make sense for us south of Hadrian's wall to stay on BST all year round. Does this sort of nonsense happen anywhere else in the world??

Arnie

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 04:05 PM

Hi Arnie. Learning your grammar from your namesake? "Fed up WITH". As Kendall Morse would have said "anything else is illiterate".

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: autolycus
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 04:18 PM

Egypt, Russia and Spain and others do keep/have kept a summer time.


one solution is not to change the clocks in the autumn, and do a difficult sum for five months of the year.

or look for a perfect world   :-)

Agree, Richard, "Fed up WITH"

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 05:02 PM

Using GMT doesn't make the length of a day in Scotland any longer. Using BST all year round would just alow them an hour later in bed before daylight started.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 06:14 PM

I never realy understood the farming argument - surely the farmers work from dawn till dusk regardless of what the clock says. Or so they would have us believe:-)

And it's 'fedupa' as in 'I'm fedupa being corrected.'

:D

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:02 PM

Stop messing around with the clocks. Where appropriate have different timetables and so forth for the different seasons. That's more or less how it's always been done up until this daft idea got dreamed up.

Dreamed up originally by Benjamin Franklin. A great man - but anyone who flies a kite in a thunderstorm with a metal key on the end has to be recognised as a bit suspect... Though in fact I think the notion was a buit of a joke - in the same paper he also suggested the following improvements to help with Daylight Saving::

1. A tax be laid on every window built with shutters to keep out the light of the sun.
2. Candles rationed to one pound per family per week, and the regulation enforced by the constabulary.
3. Guards posted to stop the passage of all coaches, etc. upon the streets after sunset except those of physicians, surgeons and midwives.
4. Every morning as soon as the sun shall rise, church bells and, if necessary, cannon shall inform the citizenry of the advent of light and "awaken the sluggards effectually and make them open their eyes to see their true interests ... All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days; after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity. ... Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is probable he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening." (See here.)

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:47 PM

Early to rise, and early to bed
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.

I think that was James Thurber, but not certain.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:47 PM

I just wish it was as easy to set my bodyclock as it is to set my Napoleon clock on the mantlepiece... here it is, nearly 1.00am according to the chronometers here, but my body is telling me it's really only nearly midnight.

It'll take me a week to sort this out. Daylight Savings Time does nothing for us insomniacs!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: gnomad
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 08:01 PM

I like the idea of fixed time, as I too find adjusting clocks and sleep patterns twice yearly unnecessary, a pain in the neck, and sometimes actually difficult. Anyone who needed (or just wished) to adjust their working day to fit daylight would be at liberty to do as suited their whim.

My own whim would be to stick with GMT all the year round, after all that was where it all stemmed from, nobody would need to rebuild all those sundials, and finding direction using the sun would be pleasingly logical.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: folk1e
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 09:29 PM

GMT is OK for me!
I don't understand why we have to prattle about with BST.
GMT has noon (sun directly overhead, or a bit south of if you live in the Northern Hemisphere). That means Dawn and Dusk are equal times apart.
If we adopt BST (forward 1 hour) Dawn and dusk will be 1 hour earlier. You still get the same amount of daylight, but skew the time by an hour!
Dark in the morning or dark at evening what difference does it make?
I have a special invention to counteract this ..... it is a set of headlights!
In winter I need to use them in the morning, going to work AND in the evening, going home!

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: autolycus
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 01:55 AM

Yes it was Thurber.

I sometimes get 'fed uppa' having to correct. Again.

:-)

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: GUEST,Arnie at work
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 02:56 AM

Richard et al,

It's 'Fed up of' - as spoken by us proper Yorkshire folk!

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 03:41 AM

If my universal translator is working, that should be

"Fed oop wi' "

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Mr Red
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:10 AM

'appen

Now in the Black Coontry (owr Kid) we'm fed up by .............


forgetting to re-set the alarm cluck.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Doc John
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 05:27 AM

Er...why bother at all? Some people - including the press - seem to think that shifting the clock really gives us extra daylight. The Earth moves perhaps? Surely it isn't beyond us to start a little later on the dark mornings and finish a little rearlier on dark evenings; then compensate for this by working a little longer when the light returns. End of nonsense...
I can't understand the farming argument either: surely the cows don't adjust their udder clocks.
Doc John

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: goatfell
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 06:01 AM

Benjamin Franklin, a man that stood outside in a thunderstorm flying a kite with a key at the end of it and you say he was a great man.

keep it the way it is

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Little Robyn
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 06:59 AM

We're still on daylight saving time here in NZ - it finishes next weekend. This year it was extended so people could enjoy the longer evenings and enjoy outdoor activities longer. But the down side is getting up in the dark in the mornings.
The farmers here used to complain too - the poor cows were being expected to wake up an hour earlier and produce milk an hour before they were ready.
Next Sunday morning we can sleep in an extra hour and hopefully the sun will be up before us.
The cows are going to be confused tho' - and full of milk!
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 09:27 AM

My uncle the dairy farmer doesn't have that trouble with his cows... he just gets up when they do as he's done for the last 50 years. Whatever the clock says, it makes very little difference to the cow. The only person who is put out is the bloke in the tanker who collects the milk. Sometimes he has to get up a bit earlier.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: autolycus
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 03:29 PM

I resolve not to correct so much in future -

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:25 PM

Personally I think the earth is more likely to move on a dark morning.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:34 PM

Well, I'm the one who has to be different. I LIKE it when the clocks are changed. I like suddenly having an evening that's lighter as spring is arriving. And I even like it in autumn when it's dark at teatime, just right to curl up by the fire. Having an extra hour in bed is pure luxury. And I can live with having an hour less once a year - it's as nothing to getting up for May morning, after all!

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Sooz
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:28 PM

I agree!

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Rasener
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:35 PM

I wish we would stick with the current time for the winter and move it forward next year an hour for the summer, and come into line with the rest of Europe. I love the long light evenings. Puts a spring in yer step :-)

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:47 PM

Actually I think it's rather a good idea. It means that my kids now come and wake me up an hour later in the morning and it's still light when I go home from work.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: GUEST,Kirby
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 03:21 AM

Yes it's that time of year when Britons go abroad and sadly things haven't changed. Badly behaved Brits abroad are being arrested in their droves, figures show.


Foreign Office data reveals the soaring number of arrests in Spain and France.

You are advised to take your tin hat with you if going to a resort favoured by British tourists.

These figures have just been released.

Between April 2006 and March 2007 2,032 Britons were arrested in Spain, a rise of a third more than in 2005/06 and the highest number of any country visited.

The Foreign Office said that many of the arrests were due to "behaviour caused by excessive drinking".

There has been a 50% rise in Britons arrested in France in the last 12 months.

The most likely destination for Britons to be arrested was Cyprus, then the USA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), when arrests were taken as a proportion of the number of Britons who travelled there.


The Foreign Office statistics also revealed 1,591 British travellers died in Spain (most were alcohol related incidents), more than in anywhere else abroad, 385 Britons died in France and 294 died in Greece, again alcohol was involved in most of these deaths.


Why do British tourists and football supporters cause so much embarrassment ?

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 03:25 AM

They're very well-behaved when they come here to the United States, especially when they attend folk gatherings.....

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: GUEST,Chippinder
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:54 AM

And, as usual, with the summer weekend diaries full of birthday barbecues and garden parties, music festivals, steam rallies, summer fetes etc, IT IS RAINING CATS AND DOGS!

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: maeve
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:56 AM

This morning in The State of Maine it's raining raccoons and whitetails.

I trust all clocks are managing to keep their designated time. Otherwise, how on earth will we know when summertime is over?

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 08:18 AM

This morning in Northamptonshire it is pisitively possing with rain.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:21 PM

Did it again tonight, but with added hailstones...

We appear to have had about a months' worth of rain in one day. Just what the farmers need.... not.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: lady penelope
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 07:43 AM

I'm sorry, but the swap between GMT & BST only makes a difference to when it gets light or dark for about 2 - 3 weeks twice a year. Once you move past these points it makes damn all difference what so ever as it's either dark either end of the working day or light either end of the working day. BST is utterly unnecessary.

As for our weather.... anyone know if there are any ark building workshops about?

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 08:23 AM

"Badly behaved Brits abroad are being arrested in their droves, figures show."

and:-

"Between April 2006 and March 2007 2,032 Britons were arrested in Spain,"

Isn't it strange that 'GUEST Kirby' forgot to include the next section from the BBC article he cut and pasted from - the bit where the above figures are put into context?

17 MILLION British people visit Spain annually, according to the article. That means that the number arrested is 0.0119% of the total number who visit Spain annually or, put another way, one Brit in 8,366 gets arrested. Hardly 'in their droves' is it?

Hysterical drama-queen crap, Kirby.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 08:24 AM

And WTF has that got to do with adjusting the clocks by one hour anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: Les from Hull
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 10:35 AM

It's just another ignorant troll trying to 'prove' something with inaccurately quoted statistics.

Subject: RE: BS: British Summer Time again
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 11:17 AM

The answer is simple - compromise.   Move the clocks 1/2 hour and leave it at that!!!!!!!