h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

By putting the clocks forward or back we can save time.
Didnt know that; im trying to work it out though - nope, it dosent work. moving the hands on a clock dosent affect anything.(fact it seems to confuse things)
Personaly i have a good internal clock which is usualy only a few minutes out; when the clocks change it really screws it up, wonder what else it screws up?
All animals have internal clocks.
?

i think this clocking business is a mad conspiracy by the British Government

we could get to drink in daylight much longer n be far less pale if we stayed at GMT all year round

I just find the whole concept bizarre. Surely it's easier to change convention, for instance a company's morning start time, than to change time itself? The day is the same length regardless of which point we choose to calibrate our clocks.

As for downsides, there is an inevitable amount of confusion, people turing up late etc which must have a minor impact on the economy. In our house we always forget to change the heating controller for a few days, so the heating is probably on for an hour after we've left the house in the morning.

There is also some evidence that roadkill increases in the days after a change. Animals seem to learn when traffic is busiest and how to avoid it, and then we confuse them by changing it.

mm, interesting to hear the polititians talk about it.
Most of the mps spouting on say that the number of accidents and injuries sharply decrease as a result of changing the clocks.
Of course it could mean that whilst there is possibly a sharp increase in accidents immediately, in the long run there are fewer, or it could mean they are politicians?
Is there any hope

BST should be done away with... I really can't se e the point in it, and if there really is any logic then surely a more logical thing woudl be to move GMT, perminatly* to the mid point between GMT and BST, cause no one seroiusly is goign to suggest half a an hour is that significent? A lot of schools seem to have differnt start times to each other now as it is, so the idea of schools, firms etc., moving their start/closing time woudl pressumbably be easier, for those few buisnesses in which the amount of daylight really made that much differnce

yeah but GMT is a global navigational standard

the grenwich meridian defines the world

or am i wrong?

I've heard two reasons why the clocks change time. Firstly, it was to give farmers more daylight during the war years. Secondly it was to ensure that mornings were lighter so it was safer for children traveling to school. I don’t know if anyone can clarify either of these statements.

dunno about the first one

it makes sense

the second one complies with the first

i guess it must have been GMT that came first

mmm, so if you move the hands of a clock you get more daylight.
Sounds a bit canutian to me.
In the not to near future someone will look this up and have a good laugh.
Wonder if its a power thingy.
Along the lines of "we are in control and look what we can do if we feel like it,"
To me the whole idea is bizzare.
What is even more strange is the support it gets - are people really that much out of touch with themselves?

Government wants to move clock fingers about (power trip of course) but the real world does not change.

Leave clocks on GMT (since we Brits own Greenwich) and tell businesses/schools/etc to move their working days as they wish. Then we'll see who really wants to take the trouble to voluntarily mess their wall clocks and body clocks about.

If some businesses change their working hours, but others don't, this will cut congestion since rush-hour will effectively be not-so-rush-2-hour. It may even save more carbon emissions than having to put lights on (energy-saving of course) earlier or later.

Ban BST in the UK since BST (Bering Strait Time) is GMT-11 hours, and we don't want anything to do with that, do we!

Wheyyy, spot on.

Sod it. If we can fiddle about with time like this, why not make the day 36 hours long? That way I could get all my work done, go to the pub after and still get a good night's sleep. Clocks would re-sync with earth's rotation every 72 hours anyway, so it's not as if it would cause too much confusion.

death to bst

DEATH 2 BST

DEATH!
2!
BST!!!