In article <frmv4r$dhl$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Keith F.
Lynch) wrote:
> Paul Dormer <prd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > It seems that up to 1980, BST started the Sunday before the vernal
> > equinox, but then changed to the last Sunday in March. It's not
> > uncommon for the clock change to occur the Sunday of the
convention,
> > but I think this may be the first Eastercon to be entirely in the
> > GMT period.
>
> The change to daylight saving time was unusually early in the US this
> year, due to more random tinkering by politicians. We've been on it
> for weeks already.
Well, memorably from 1968 to 1971, we experimented with British
Standard Time in the UK, one hour ahead of GMT the year round. Sunrise
in London in early January is 8:05 GMT and I was in the north of
England at the time, where sunrise is even later. It was dark well
into the first lesson period at school, and it was even worse if you
were in Scotland or Northern Ireland which is a long way west of
Greenwich.
Now, the clock change is coordinated all across the EU, I believe.
Even the time of the change. It used to be that 2:00 GMT became 3:00
BST in spring and vice versa in autumn, but the change is now from
01:00 to 02:00.
Every so often, I see letters in the paper saying we should move the
spring clock change earlier in the year. I think the logic is that as
BST ends the last Sunday in October, that's only 7-8 weeks from the
winter solstice, whereas BST starting last Sunday in March is 13-14
weeks after the solstice. For instance, last year's clock change was
28th October, which is 54 days before the 21st December. The clocks
change again on 30th March, which is 100 days after 21st December.
Things are a bit more even handed if you take the day of latest sunrise,
which seems to be around the last week in December and the first week
of January. Then again, the day of earliest sunset is around the
second week in December. When I first started work, it confused me
that it was dark leaving work at 17:00 the week the clocks went back
but light at the same time the first week of February. (I started work
the day after the clocks went back in 1973 and retired the Friday
before they went forward in 2004, making sure I didn't work any extra
hours.)
|
