A Very Brief Guide to Why the Clocks Change
In short
The general 'why' is that we make better use of our daylight hours.
Energy
The idea is that because we have more daylight during waking hours, we use less energy on lighting etc. Some argue this is offset by people doing more in the evenings (like driving around) and therefore there is no net gain. There are stats all over the place and you can probably find a stat to prove any point you like. On balance, most people seem to think that it does save some energy but not a lot.
Leisure
This one is reasonably undisputed. People do more leisure and sport activities because there is more light.
Health
Tricky. On one hand, more sunlight increases levels of Vitamin D (good), but also can increasingly cause skin cancer (bad). Health improves because people are generally happier when there's more light (sweeping comment we know and this isn't the place to expand on that). Health also improves because people can; generally, undertake more sport and other leisure activities. However, it depends what your leisure activity is and if it involves spending the evening in the pub then the Health arguments are a little thin. On balance, the opinion seems to be pro-health.
Economic
Again, fairly undisputed. Again, lots of stats available, mostly produced by people with an interest one way or another so you take your pick. However, the data tends to suggest an increase in general economic activity caused by people doing more due to longer daylight hours.
The Arguments against Daylight Saving Time
Firstly, the simple hassle of changing your clocks, watches, and computers and so on. It's a clear cut argument but is generally balanced by a 'how busy is your life if you can't spend five minutes twice a year adjusting your clocks'. Most people know the real hassle here is actually trying to find the instruction manual for your oven/DVD recorder so you can figure out _how_ to change the time. But that argument rarely features.
Secondly, Farmers and rural folk tend to dislike the change. There seems to be a general confidence that this is the case but fairly thin arguments as to why. One possibility is that there are a high proportion of Daily Mail readers among farmers and rural folk and therefore they dislike the clock change on the basis that any change is something to be upset about. (Apologies to readers outside the UK for whom the previous sentence will mean very little.) <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
What gets me about the arguments for clock change is that changing the clocks DOES NOT GIVE YOU MORE DAYLIGHT HOURS!!! It just shifts when the existing daylight hours are slightly in the day.
Having worked on a dairy farm for 15 years (many years ago) I can understand why farmers are against it, I spent 15 years coming in for several mornings each winter to find 180 cows standing mooing outside of the milking parlour wandering where there breakfast was and why their full udders wheren't being dealt with And then in spring several mornings going round trying to round uo the same 180 cows who would just look at me wondering what my problem was waking them up in the middle of the night, cows have internal clocks that cant be adjusted at the press of a button
Interesting about the cows......
remember: the faster you go, the slower time passes for you relative to your slower moving BM buddies.....
Discuss that !
Sandi thank you for the heads up - I would have forgotten for sure
Centurion I never thought about farm animals and how the clocks change effect them - can't think of how uncomfee the moo's must be, nothing worse than full udders Joking aside, poor beasties
@ Mark .... can even a 'busa travel at speeds approaching that of light? (Yes I was paying attention). Time may go relatively more slowly at high speed but yer mates - who travelled more slowly - felt like they took less time over it. So who gets to the butty van first?
yus i did have a bit of a blonde moment didnt i pmsl ... tis good in my world.. hahahaha
i think they should let us live by our body clocks and if its daylight get out there and if its dark then dont!!!
bring back candles and horse drawn carts i say.... but keep the bikes of course
whooops il get the topic police after me
my problem one year was i didnt know my mobiel automatically went forward and i put it forward again when i woke up thinking it was an hour behind ...
Being incredibly ancient I remember one reason was that it saved children having to walk to school in the dark....they no longer do that: they arrive in an armoured convoy of FWDs and large MPVs that quite correctly park on the pavement! There was talk last autumn about a permanent move to BST. ( To keep in line with our Euro-cousins.) I'd be in favour of that but not for the stated reason. I also remember during the Suez Crisis in the 50s, Double summer time was declared! Didn't get dark in the South 'til 11pm and much later in Scotland.
Ah well at the end of the day it gets dark and on the plus side it's an hour less wait to see my lickle LMF
Loving the bit about the cows, had me PMSL for ages. Nice one Centurion
When it comes to daylight and time .... Am old enough to get all that. I know that cows (and other domesticated animals) struggle with it. We all have bits of equipment that say they are going to alter automatically - then don't. Other stuff gets you pondering whether you are going mad because you changed it and then the radio-controlled system did it a-f'n-gain!
It is all a bit of a mystery as to why we bother quite frankly. But - do I care? Should I really get wound up about losing an hour and then getting it back - of beauty sleep (or drinking time)?
Did anyone forget to change their clock?
It was annoying for me this morning, as I have to leave soon to the Kent steam day and the 6 volt lights on my old beemer are not so good. Ok it's not dark but it is foggy at present.
pmsl Laffo!!!! can we claim back our lost hour as time in lieu please someone who decided to change em ......how bout we all refuse to change em back... what would the powers that be do then
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