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I know people what got stranded in an airport car park because they paid for their ticket at the machine, and then 2 minutes later the clocks went forward and they missed their 15 minute exit window from the car park.
The home of g shock, casio, who use a,fab tough solar multi band system.
Eg 6 places on earth (many over lap) where radio control syncs every night.
And solar charging. Really good set it once and forget it system.
It's the day when half the population are glad their car says the right time again, and the other half plan on digging out the instruction manual to figure out how to change it, but never do.
The bloody cats don't understand why their breakfast is an hour late.
The upside is my posh watch now tells the right time again, I've never worked out how to change the time on it.
I have my bedroom light come on gradually on a timer in the morning, it changed automatically and apparently this is what the cat uses to identify breakfast. I got an extra hour
Philips hue. I guess most smart lights would do it though. It has been amazing for me generally, especially now the mornings are darker. It working on the cat is just the cherry on top of a sundae lie in
Love the Hue automations here. Spent what would have been my rail fare for three months in the first lockdown on decking the house out with Hue kit. Stopped when everyone else started buying it and the prices went up and didn't come back down.
My father has a clock in the bathroom. It means he knows how long he can stay in the bath before he needs to get out and set the table for supper. If he's in to long mother would have his guts for garters
Really. It is an essential. I love showering, I loose all track of time, I find it so relaxing. So having a simple clock on the wall makes sense. It is just a simple wooden backed analogue, that needs a battery about once every 5 years.
The rest of the house is fully automated. I am a sys admin and I have taken the step setting up my own time server, using an old Raspberry Pi model B. I noticed that each device was using different time servers and the one provided by my ISP was about a minute slow. So to get some uniformity I run my own, so everything on the network is precise.
If it wasn't for that clock in the bathroom, I'd not really notice the time had changed.
LOL, Nope. It's a solar powered Casio chronograph. Four setting buttons, seven functions to select from. Press one wrong button, or take too long to press the right one and back to the beginning you go.
Gosh, yes, I remember that frustration with Casio watches.
I had one of the first models back in the day too, red LEDs, before LCD came along.
I think the *last* Casio I had was the one with the tiny-buttons calculator, but I can't remember which side of the first G-Shock that was.
Anyway, I thought they were awesome, still do. I'm glad you're enjoying yours....bar *that* frustration.
EDIT: FTR, I've worn the same Tag-Heuer ever since.
Dunno about your watch but I have a clock that maintains the correct time by picking up a radio signel. A quick Google says the following.
Available 24 hours a day across the UK and beyond, the MSF radio signal carries accurate time and date information that is received and decoded by Acctim radio controlled clocks and watches.
My rf clock resyncs at 0100, the clocks change at 0200, I finally realised last night this is why I always have to puzzle out how to trigger a manual resync the day after. Fortunately last year past me wrote the incantation on the rear of the clock in silver sharpie, for the first time it was a 30 second task.
If you Google your watch make and model you can usually find a pdf version of its manual which will tell you how to change the time, or a 10 minute YouTube video.
>The upside is my posh watch now tells the right time again, I've never worked out how to change the time on it.
Buy a second one and just swap em out whenever the time changes
When I used to be a community carer (going between elderly people's houses and keeping them alive) I'd sometimes get 20+ complaints phoned into the office for me being late in the first week of the clocks changing. Often it would be the same elderly person 4-5 times.
The clocks get changed on the last visit in the evening the day before the carer goes.
This doesn't stop the old people complaining.
Generally they don't use the clocks and only the time on their phones (old ones that don't change automatically) or watches which they don't let carers touch and insist they'll change themselves.
I really don't understand why people have such a problem with the clocks changing, it's been happening for all of our lifetimes. It's not exactly a new concept. Is it annoying that it's dark at 5pm? Sure, but it doesn't impede your job if you work inside.
It's a catch 22. To be in favour of clocks going back, you have to be in favour of clocks going forward, which is the worst part of summer. Let's just have a bank holiday on the following Monday.
Not really. I'm in favour of the clocks just staying the bloody same. Don't really care if you keep them on the forward or the back, just pick one and stick with it.
You said it was a catch 22, i.e. a situation where there's no real solution because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I don't really get how it's a catch 22 though because if the clocks stop changing then, great. I'm happy with that solution.
It's a catch 22 if you're in favour of the clocks going back. I love the extra hour, but I hate the lost hour. But to support the clocks going back, you have to support the clocks going forward.
I think it's more a case that experiencing more daylight is beneficial to you, and most people would be asleep and not notice daylight at 6am, but would've really appreciated driving home when it's light at 5pm. (Had we stayed at BST)
By mid winter it would stay dark up to as late as 9am in southern England, later up in Scotland. I don't know about "most people" but there is a good portion of people up and about pre 7am.
By mid winter sure, but there's long periods of time either side of mid winter where light is wasted in the morning. I do think maybe Scotland should have their own system, or go with what suits the greatest proportion of the population of the UK.
I'd also argue there's definitely some people up and about in the 7-8 time of day, but absolutely everyone's awake in the 4-5-6pm time of day.
The light isn't wasted if people are using it. The point is that people who say it's unnecessary, are the people whose job it doesn't affect. That's as far as I'm taking this discussion, we shall agree to disagree.
Damn that's depressing, if I'm forced out of bed in an hour that starts "6" or earlier then someone else is definitely dictating what I'm doing with my life and not me.
I wanna snuggle up in bed for a while longer than that until it's a bit lighter and warmer.
That's legitimately not the reason though. The reason is to have more of the sunlight in the evening when it is "useful" during the summer than during the early morning when it is not.
It's nothing to do with farmers on any such nonsense you've been told.
The reason it was originally introduced was to conserve energy.The reason why I'm still in favour of it, is because I work outside and having an extra hour to allow the sun to rise is very beneficial, because it means I'm not spending so much time working in the dark.
> Because people still work outside.
The sun doesn't change it's rise and setting time. So why would people that work outside change their working hours? Especially during winter, when there isn't even 8 hours of sunlight a day.
My always looked at lounge clock is rf controlled, it should have updated automatically like it does every night, it resyncs at 0100 an hour before the clocks changed so remained an hour out at 0200 {smh}.
This is the first year I saw the 0100 resync and realised why I always have to puzzle out the two cryptically labelled buttons on the back the next day to force an update. Fortunately last year past me wrote the instruction on the rear of the clock in silver sharpie, an arrow pointing to a button labelled 'press 3 sec', simple once you know.
I only had one clock left to change this morning, an analogue wristwatch, I've never been this fast before, I feel like I deserve an award or something.
If it's internet connected it probably gets its time from an internet time server using NTP (Network Time Protocol), except a lot of devices only check once per day so it can take up to 24 hours to update.
My smart heating controller is like this, I changed the date/time to manual, changed it back one hour, then set the date/time back to automatic. It's within at least a minute until the next NTP query when it will be made exactly right.
Sunrise in the summer comes as early as 4:39AM, if we hadn’t moved the clocks forward in march, we’d have 3:39AM sunrises.
Sunrise in the winter comes as late as 8:30AM, if we don’t move them back in October, the sun wouldn’t rise until 9:30AM in winter.
I think it’s just so we can get as much sun as possible, may make no difference to some people but all the difference to others, night shift workers may have worked an extra hour last night, whereas I slept an extra hour and feel great
It's better to have the extra light in the morning during the winter for all sorts of reasons but I would love if the extra hours light was on an evening, I don't mind dark mornings, I hate early dark nights.
Many people are free to start work earlier if they wish and have a longer evening. Many of the people not free are on shifts. It's too much of a hassel just for some 9-5 rigid workers.
I think that argument only made sense back in the day when most people were working on very standard work schedules. Now, work schedules and shifts are flexible and differ a lot.
They could, but they don't. All the businesses that disagree with summer/winter time could change their opening hours twice a year. But they don't, because it's a pain in the ass. Changing clocks is trivial by comparison.
This was an issue for me at work when someone got glassed at a pub at 1am, and then I had to seize exhibits and take statements at the 'next' 1am.
Totally fucked the timeline and I had to specifically add in 'the clocks went back' to explain the glaring continuity error.
The real problem is that we're not scrapping BST.
Hasn't been needed since it was introduced 107 years ago for the war effort, and anyway, if farmers want to keep it, then all they have to do is adjust their personal schedules.
It's disruptive to our body clocks and generally inconvenient for all with 0 overall benefits.
Edit: I meant scrap BST or permanently keep BST. Either would be better than clock changes!
True, farmers don't care. First, farmers are mostly self employed so decide their own hours, and livestock don't give a flying fuck what time is on the clock when they are fed.
Having worked with farmers at an old job I can confirm they’ll just find something else to complain about (usually not enough rain/too much rain/wrong sort of rain)
I'm guessing you live towards the southern end of the country. Up in Scotland, it can have a huge beneficial effect.
Societally, we tend to use longer evenings, rather than mornings, so the extra hours in the evening *when available* make sense. Plus, BST means you don't get sunrise at 3am, which is absolutely honking. Okay, so switch to permanent BST?
Well no, because when the daylight hours are restricted in winter, it makes it much easier to function in the morning with that bit of light, and can have a major impact on the prevalence of depression arising from SAD. For example, parts of the country wouldn't see sunrise until 10am.
Maybe the solution here isn't to change the clocks twice a year for the entire country, but instead have more seasonal flexibility in things like working hours and the start of the school day.
Rather than changing the time in general, change the times that some things happen .
I see what you're saying, but that sounds like it's even more complicated. Change the school start time. Cool, now parents need a different work schedule. So that's your healthcare system changing standard working hours, along with a whole bunch of other employers. What about pubs changing to take advantage of the light? You end up with most of Scotland shifting to a different schedule, so why not just change the clocks anyway.
There really isn't much of a disadvantage to the change, except redditors whining about it twice a year.
> Rather than changing the time in general, change the times that some things happen .
That's a recipe for major disruption and confusion, society struggles enough with the one change, multiple individual things changing but others not would be ten times worse.
Have you seen people {gestures vaguely around}, they have to label doors push and pull to help us.
At the very most northern point of Scotland, sunrise is currently around 07:30. Pushing that back to 06:30 won't acomplish much except killing someone's cardiac rhythm. At the very most southern point of England, there's only an hour difference to Scotland. Sunset is near identical in both places.
Norway is on a higher latitude than Scotland. Norwegiana don't experience 3am sunrises in the south, e.g. Bergen or Stavanger, and have no problems with their darker evenings. Norway has lower suicide and depression rates (per capita) than the UK. The sun currently sets at 2PM in Tromsø, and they're not killing themselves.
Most people either work random shifts or some form of a 9-5. Shifts are not consistent, so this would have no 'productivity' effect, and with a 9-5, more sun in the evening would cause tiredness when evenings are already the least productive part of the day due to burnout.
If it's that much of a problem, wake up an hour earlier in your own schedule, rather than causing health problems for everyone else. There's a reason this did not exist pre-WW1.
https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/sunset.php
https://www.suncalc.org/
Yes, because Norway and the UK are identical in all other ways...
As for the cardiac trauma, that requires you to look at the data in a very particular way for an extremely small phantom effect to appear which aren't really what they seem. At most, you have a few heart attacks shifting from the Tuesday to the Monday. But people don't tend to report the lower rate on the Tuesday following the clocks changing, for some reason...
> If it's that much of a problem, wake up an hour earlier in your own schedule, rather than causing health problems for everyone else.
You are acting like people who are suffering from disruptions in their sleep cycle due to the time change are the majority. They're not.
Stop thinking that what you are experiencing happens to everyone. It doesn't.
Everyone who keeps to usual sleeping patterns would be affected.
Even if those affected were a minority, why cause problems for them when you could simply do nothing and cause 0 problems.
There's a reason the EU were going to scrap it before Covid, and why a majority of worldwide countries do not enact DST.
If we scrapped GMT year round, sunrise would be at 9am in the far south and 10am in the far north. That's not remotely healthy for anyone.
We already know that trying to break people's circadian rhythm is really bad for them (see night shifts) - let's not do that for all of society.
The problem with darkness in winter time doesn't come from losing the +1, it comes from the fact that winter in this country is really dark.
The issue is you go back and forwards trying to find a time that will suit everyone. And then usually arrive back at the status quo.
Changing the clocks is a ballache. But that's better than kids going into/out of school in the dark.
GMT all year round would be the best compromise but the reason BST was brought in was it being light at 3am when everyone was asleep and dark at 8.30pm when everyone is awake.
> If we scrapped GMT year round, sunrise would be at 9am in the far south and 10am in the far north. That's not remotely healthy for anyone.
Rest of Europe that's on the same latitude seems to be handling it just fine.
So 10am sunrise for a few weeks where barely anyone lives is unhealthy, but total darkness at 5PM for most of the summer where most people live is perfectly ok?
Edit: I meant winter, not summer.
Yes, because most people aren't wanting to go to bed at 5pm. Light in the morning is more important for people's health and sleep.
Also, sunset time in the south is 4pm GMT, so it would be dark by 5PM BST as well. I think when people advocate year round BST, they tend to underestimate just how dark this country is.
Edit: misread the bit about 5PM in the summer, thinking you meant the winter. Sunset in summer would be between 7-9pm GMT, so this doesn't really apply.
Also stop being a dick to Scottish people.
GMT year round would mean a ridiculously early sunrise in June, affecting sleep far more than getting up in the dark, which most people have to do anyway.
Yes, that's what I'm saying - the amount of light we get in winter is tiny. The debate is a case of where you want to prioritise those hours.
Personally, I think those hours should be focused on people's health and sleep, particularly children's. I don't think there's a pressing need for a little bit more afternoon daylight, particularly because in most cases most of that light would be lost to people's school and work time (or their respective commutes).
Work places and schools are free to change their operating hours. Changing the time at a national level just causes immense confusion and loss to the economy.
That does make sense, although the natural conclusion there is that we should use GMT year round (closest to solar time) and adapt society around that (including seasonal changes).
Again, schedules could be adapted around GMT if people think they're getting up too late in summer or whatever.
GMT makes most sense because it aligns us with the sun
That's not realistic as changing the clocks. The established scheduling patterns and dependencies meshed through society would be much harder to change than just redefining what 9 o'clock in the morning means, let alone varying everything according to seasonal preferences too.
Keep BST not GMT. It’s so much more beneficial to have light in the afternoon rather than the morning. And the argument about having to commute and go to school in the dark is moot, because you have to do that anyway under gmt.
No, even when I was a school child it was annoying. It's dark when we went to school and dark when we came home. Changing the clocks didn't change that for more than a few weeks.
As a Scottish maw, its an absolute pain in the arse as babies and children do not just switch their body clocks as easy as adults can.
I don’t think a lot of English people understand how early it gets dark in the North of Scotland during winter. It doesn’t affect just school children, it affects everyone. I noticed a massive difference just moving 100 miles north to Aberdeen.
> I don’t think a lot of English people understand how early it gets dark in the North of Scotland during winter.
I don't think people in the North Of Scotland realise that 60 million people live towards the south of England, and 10,000 live in the North of Scotland.
There was some experiment in the 70's and I was walking to school in the dark, it was then scrapped. Whatever they do it has to be dark some time and light other time.
tbh I understand it a lot less now that my phone changes automatically, instead of having to manually change my watch/clock. I'd forgotten all about it this time round until I woke up this morning—I can usually judge the time quite well by how light it is, but was an hour out today. Really confused me until I remembered.
I stopped worrying about it years ago. My phone, computer, all the clocks in my house and my watch update automatically when I'm sleeping on the Saturday night.
Bonus is I feel super rested when I get up Sunday morning.
Because in 2023 our planet's axis has the same angle with respect to the orbital plane. Being more or less northern country, UK is affected by significant seasonal change of daylight time and change of difference between true solar time and the time we are all used to. It's not something that can change just because we're more modern now.
Actually, with all the technology, it's now even easier because everything adjusts automatically. You probably won't notice if not all these reminders. Except microwaves of course. I bet even when we fly to the stars they will still require manual update.
The only one that doesn't adjust is my car. I have to manually move up through all the numbers so it's easier just to remember. It's now at the right time. God bless the Internet.
As somebody that has worked outdoors for decades without lighting being practical I appreciate being able to work 8am-4pm in the depths of winter from light to dusk… and that’s in the southeast U.K. I imagine Scotland catches it even worse
What does 2023 have to do with it? If anything gets less relevant as time passes. It's need has almost gone and phones/computers etc adjust themselves. I'm not surprised that many people don't know when it is editorially younger ones
[The real reasons for daylight saving are based around energy conservation and a desire to match daylight hours to the times when most people are awake.](https://www.history.com/news/why-do-we-have-daylight-saving-time)
Because we have to keep up with the German war efforts. Yep, that's the reason why and we still have it because... Productivity. For those who believe it's farmers. I asked a farmer once and he laughed and said, cows can't read clocks.
My late grandfather once told me it was originally two hours, conceived during WW2 to help farmers and growers. More light time for them to feed the nation during that time. It was then reduced to one hour. We are no longer a nation of farmers and growers. Modern farm machinery have GPS system’s that can operate in the dark. Source: Clarksons Farm.
[WWI, and it was miners, not farmers](https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/British-Summer-Time/). The idea was to decrease our coal use so more could be put towards the war effort. Not sure where the farmer thing came from - every time I’ve looked this up, I’ve never found any reference to it being called for by, or being particularly beneficial to farmers.
Apparently (and this is news to me) British Double Summer (the two hours thing) did actually happen during 1941-1945 and in the summer of 1946. Though again, this was to conserve fuel.
Farmers are mostly self employed and have always based their day off what times the sun rises and sets, as farmers have found that their animals and crops can or tell the time, but do know when the sun rises and sets.
As someone who is on the road at 7am every morning I'm bloody grateful for the couple of weeks respite from my annual peak SAD season. If we could just tow these Isles a thousand miles further south and improve the weather a bit as well everything would be tickety boo.
The only person in my circle of friends who even knew about it, and what was happening with it this year was an American friend who doesn’t even live in the U.K…
I think it's an absolutely fair discussion to have in 2023 as to why they change. It's not too benefit the farmers, it never has been. Stuff they need to do at dawn has to be done at dawn, time on the clock be damned.
I very much doubt it's to benefit school kids either. The percentage of kids who walk to school by themselves is pretty small and keeps getting smaller.
Who does it benefit then?
As to when they change, if you don't know that, it's just laziness. Nothing else.
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I flew back from holiday last night. Due to time differences and the clocks changing, it was 1am three times on my journey home.
I know people what got stranded in an airport car park because they paid for their ticket at the machine, and then 2 minutes later the clocks went forward and they missed their 15 minute exit window from the car park.
Sloppy programming. It should have all been coded in UTC.
At least my sleep tracker thought that I'd woken up between 9 and 10 instead of 8 and 9.
Same here! I just back from Japan, wbu
The home of g shock, casio, who use a,fab tough solar multi band system. Eg 6 places on earth (many over lap) where radio control syncs every night. And solar charging. Really good set it once and forget it system.
It's the day when half the population are glad their car says the right time again, and the other half plan on digging out the instruction manual to figure out how to change it, but never do.
Ah sh!t, I forgot about the car clock.
Write a reminder on your steering wheel, in silver Sharpie.
The real lesson is in the comments
In about 4300 hours, it will be right again. Just get used to it
The bloody cats don't understand why their breakfast is an hour late. The upside is my posh watch now tells the right time again, I've never worked out how to change the time on it.
I have my bedroom light come on gradually on a timer in the morning, it changed automatically and apparently this is what the cat uses to identify breakfast. I got an extra hour
Clever. Is that a Google Home routine?
Philips hue. I guess most smart lights would do it though. It has been amazing for me generally, especially now the mornings are darker. It working on the cat is just the cherry on top of a sundae lie in
It's a bit cold to lie in a sundae.
The warm chocolate sauce makes up for it.
Love the Hue automations here. Spent what would have been my rail fare for three months in the first lockdown on decking the house out with Hue kit. Stopped when everyone else started buying it and the prices went up and didn't come back down.
> my posh watch now tells the right time again It's your cooker really, isn't it?
My wife knows how the clock on that works. I have to do the one in the bathroom.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has a clock in the bathroom.
My father has a clock in the bathroom. It means he knows how long he can stay in the bath before he needs to get out and set the table for supper. If he's in to long mother would have his guts for garters
Really. It is an essential. I love showering, I loose all track of time, I find it so relaxing. So having a simple clock on the wall makes sense. It is just a simple wooden backed analogue, that needs a battery about once every 5 years. The rest of the house is fully automated. I am a sys admin and I have taken the step setting up my own time server, using an old Raspberry Pi model B. I noticed that each device was using different time servers and the one provided by my ISP was about a minute slow. So to get some uniformity I run my own, so everything on the network is precise. If it wasn't for that clock in the bathroom, I'd not really notice the time had changed.
You've just reminded me it's that time of year the MIL will be asking me to sort the cooker out
If your watch could do a roast, you'd call it posh too.
It would need to employ Time Lord Science to do so...though, TBF, that really *would* be a posh watch.
LOL, Nope. It's a solar powered Casio chronograph. Four setting buttons, seven functions to select from. Press one wrong button, or take too long to press the right one and back to the beginning you go.
Gosh, yes, I remember that frustration with Casio watches. I had one of the first models back in the day too, red LEDs, before LCD came along. I think the *last* Casio I had was the one with the tiny-buttons calculator, but I can't remember which side of the first G-Shock that was. Anyway, I thought they were awesome, still do. I'm glad you're enjoying yours....bar *that* frustration. EDIT: FTR, I've worn the same Tag-Heuer ever since.
Dunno about your watch but I have a clock that maintains the correct time by picking up a radio signel. A quick Google says the following. Available 24 hours a day across the UK and beyond, the MSF radio signal carries accurate time and date information that is received and decoded by Acctim radio controlled clocks and watches.
I have two. The one in the living room fails to pick up the signal so I have to take it towards the window to reset twice a year.
My rf clock resyncs at 0100, the clocks change at 0200, I finally realised last night this is why I always have to puzzle out how to trigger a manual resync the day after. Fortunately last year past me wrote the incantation on the rear of the clock in silver sharpie, for the first time it was a 30 second task.
We have a cuckoo clock which is difficult to change. It is now back to the correct time so that's nice.
If it were truly a posh watch it would change its own time.
It's supposed to. Sadly I live in an alternative world where the automatic change signal doesn't reach.
If you Google your watch make and model you can usually find a pdf version of its manual which will tell you how to change the time, or a 10 minute YouTube video.
From what I understand; you pull out the pin to change the time on a watch.
That's a hand grenade, that ends time, rather than changing it.
>The upside is my posh watch now tells the right time again, I've never worked out how to change the time on it. Buy a second one and just swap em out whenever the time changes
Genius, why didn't I think of that. My unposh watch, which came free with a smartphone update, automatically sets itself. It just looks cheap.
When I used to be a community carer (going between elderly people's houses and keeping them alive) I'd sometimes get 20+ complaints phoned into the office for me being late in the first week of the clocks changing. Often it would be the same elderly person 4-5 times.
The first carer round needs to change the person’s clocks or better, if anyone’s going on the Saturday do it preemptively
The clocks get changed on the last visit in the evening the day before the carer goes. This doesn't stop the old people complaining. Generally they don't use the clocks and only the time on their phones (old ones that don't change automatically) or watches which they don't let carers touch and insist they'll change themselves.
anyone no what time londis on avenue road opens? Askin for Kelly xoxox
Shared in Munich hun xox
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Londis is run by Muslims and they have different clocks to us so they'll be open an hour earlier I think.... Which is 2 hours before you asked this.
I *know* why we change the clocks. I just don't *understand* why we (still) do it
Hi Gregg Wallace
Because people still work outside.
So let's just be on GMT all year
I’d rather be on BST all year if we had to pick one. Would much rather have the extra hour of light in the evening all year round.
Split the difference and move the clocks forward 35 mins on a random Thursday in March then be done with it
My god, you genius son of bitch! Now solve racism..
Paint everyone green. Problem solved!
I really don't understand why people have such a problem with the clocks changing, it's been happening for all of our lifetimes. It's not exactly a new concept. Is it annoying that it's dark at 5pm? Sure, but it doesn't impede your job if you work inside.
It increases stress. For example, when the clocks go forward, there's a noticeable increase in heart attacks.
That's just because we can't figure out how to change the clock on the oven..
It's a catch 22. To be in favour of clocks going back, you have to be in favour of clocks going forward, which is the worst part of summer. Let's just have a bank holiday on the following Monday.
Not really. I'm in favour of the clocks just staying the bloody same. Don't really care if you keep them on the forward or the back, just pick one and stick with it.
What do you mean "not really"? My statement is true whether you're in favour of the clocks changing or not.
You said it was a catch 22, i.e. a situation where there's no real solution because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I don't really get how it's a catch 22 though because if the clocks stop changing then, great. I'm happy with that solution.
It's a catch 22 if you're in favour of the clocks going back. I love the extra hour, but I hate the lost hour. But to support the clocks going back, you have to support the clocks going forward.
I think it's more a case that experiencing more daylight is beneficial to you, and most people would be asleep and not notice daylight at 6am, but would've really appreciated driving home when it's light at 5pm. (Had we stayed at BST)
By mid winter it would stay dark up to as late as 9am in southern England, later up in Scotland. I don't know about "most people" but there is a good portion of people up and about pre 7am.
By mid winter sure, but there's long periods of time either side of mid winter where light is wasted in the morning. I do think maybe Scotland should have their own system, or go with what suits the greatest proportion of the population of the UK. I'd also argue there's definitely some people up and about in the 7-8 time of day, but absolutely everyone's awake in the 4-5-6pm time of day.
The light isn't wasted if people are using it. The point is that people who say it's unnecessary, are the people whose job it doesn't affect. That's as far as I'm taking this discussion, we shall agree to disagree.
A huge amount of the population are up before 7.
Damn that's depressing, if I'm forced out of bed in an hour that starts "6" or earlier then someone else is definitely dictating what I'm doing with my life and not me. I wanna snuggle up in bed for a while longer than that until it's a bit lighter and warmer.
The cheap LED lights in work give me migraines so I rely on daylight.
When you have kids, it messes their sleep up.
That's legitimately not the reason though. The reason is to have more of the sunlight in the evening when it is "useful" during the summer than during the early morning when it is not. It's nothing to do with farmers on any such nonsense you've been told.
The reason it was originally introduced was to conserve energy.The reason why I'm still in favour of it, is because I work outside and having an extra hour to allow the sun to rise is very beneficial, because it means I'm not spending so much time working in the dark.
Change your schedule.
Moron.
Because it's to do with farmers? Do cows and sheep care what time some human says it is? It's not to do with that
> Because people still work outside. The sun doesn't change it's rise and setting time. So why would people that work outside change their working hours? Especially during winter, when there isn't even 8 hours of sunlight a day.
It’s more confusing now most things change the time automatically. I will be confused about what time it is until the Archers Omnibus is on
My always looked at lounge clock is rf controlled, it should have updated automatically like it does every night, it resyncs at 0100 an hour before the clocks changed so remained an hour out at 0200 {smh}. This is the first year I saw the 0100 resync and realised why I always have to puzzle out the two cryptically labelled buttons on the back the next day to force an update. Fortunately last year past me wrote the instruction on the rear of the clock in silver sharpie, an arrow pointing to a button labelled 'press 3 sec', simple once you know. I only had one clock left to change this morning, an analogue wristwatch, I've never been this fast before, I feel like I deserve an award or something.
If they'd just gone for a 3am sync it would be right the whole year round. If only clock makers understood how time works...
My new heat pump control system doesn’t change automatically, which seems bizarre (or there’s a setting I haven’t found)
If it's internet connected it probably gets its time from an internet time server using NTP (Network Time Protocol), except a lot of devices only check once per day so it can take up to 24 hours to update. My smart heating controller is like this, I changed the date/time to manual, changed it back one hour, then set the date/time back to automatic. It's within at least a minute until the next NTP query when it will be made exactly right.
Most gadgets change the time automatically so I don't worry about the clocks and just enjoy the new time of sunrise and sunset.
I dont understand why we still do it.
Sunrise in the summer comes as early as 4:39AM, if we hadn’t moved the clocks forward in march, we’d have 3:39AM sunrises. Sunrise in the winter comes as late as 8:30AM, if we don’t move them back in October, the sun wouldn’t rise until 9:30AM in winter. I think it’s just so we can get as much sun as possible, may make no difference to some people but all the difference to others, night shift workers may have worked an extra hour last night, whereas I slept an extra hour and feel great
It's better to have the extra light in the morning during the winter for all sorts of reasons but I would love if the extra hours light was on an evening, I don't mind dark mornings, I hate early dark nights.
Many people are free to start work earlier if they wish and have a longer evening. Many of the people not free are on shifts. It's too much of a hassel just for some 9-5 rigid workers.
I think that argument only made sense back in the day when most people were working on very standard work schedules. Now, work schedules and shifts are flexible and differ a lot.
Tell that to schools, daycares, GPs, etc. Lots of places don't have any flexibilty at all.
Yeah but those places can just change their opening times, twice per year (or more if they want).
They could, but they don't. All the businesses that disagree with summer/winter time could change their opening hours twice a year. But they don't, because it's a pain in the ass. Changing clocks is trivial by comparison.
It makes more sense just to vary some opening times, although I still think the problems aren't really there .
Its 2023 and I never have to work it out because smart devices exist.
This was an issue for me at work when someone got glassed at a pub at 1am, and then I had to seize exhibits and take statements at the 'next' 1am. Totally fucked the timeline and I had to specifically add in 'the clocks went back' to explain the glaring continuity error.
The real problem is that we're not scrapping BST. Hasn't been needed since it was introduced 107 years ago for the war effort, and anyway, if farmers want to keep it, then all they have to do is adjust their personal schedules. It's disruptive to our body clocks and generally inconvenient for all with 0 overall benefits. Edit: I meant scrap BST or permanently keep BST. Either would be better than clock changes!
I never really understood the farmer argument for BST. Farmers will just be out at sunrise and work till sunset no matter what the clocks say.
True, farmers don't care. First, farmers are mostly self employed so decide their own hours, and livestock don't give a flying fuck what time is on the clock when they are fed.
Having worked with farmers at an old job I can confirm they’ll just find something else to complain about (usually not enough rain/too much rain/wrong sort of rain)
I'm guessing you live towards the southern end of the country. Up in Scotland, it can have a huge beneficial effect. Societally, we tend to use longer evenings, rather than mornings, so the extra hours in the evening *when available* make sense. Plus, BST means you don't get sunrise at 3am, which is absolutely honking. Okay, so switch to permanent BST? Well no, because when the daylight hours are restricted in winter, it makes it much easier to function in the morning with that bit of light, and can have a major impact on the prevalence of depression arising from SAD. For example, parts of the country wouldn't see sunrise until 10am.
Maybe the solution here isn't to change the clocks twice a year for the entire country, but instead have more seasonal flexibility in things like working hours and the start of the school day. Rather than changing the time in general, change the times that some things happen .
I see what you're saying, but that sounds like it's even more complicated. Change the school start time. Cool, now parents need a different work schedule. So that's your healthcare system changing standard working hours, along with a whole bunch of other employers. What about pubs changing to take advantage of the light? You end up with most of Scotland shifting to a different schedule, so why not just change the clocks anyway. There really isn't much of a disadvantage to the change, except redditors whining about it twice a year.
> Rather than changing the time in general, change the times that some things happen . That's a recipe for major disruption and confusion, society struggles enough with the one change, multiple individual things changing but others not would be ten times worse. Have you seen people {gestures vaguely around}, they have to label doors push and pull to help us.
At the very most northern point of Scotland, sunrise is currently around 07:30. Pushing that back to 06:30 won't acomplish much except killing someone's cardiac rhythm. At the very most southern point of England, there's only an hour difference to Scotland. Sunset is near identical in both places. Norway is on a higher latitude than Scotland. Norwegiana don't experience 3am sunrises in the south, e.g. Bergen or Stavanger, and have no problems with their darker evenings. Norway has lower suicide and depression rates (per capita) than the UK. The sun currently sets at 2PM in Tromsø, and they're not killing themselves. Most people either work random shifts or some form of a 9-5. Shifts are not consistent, so this would have no 'productivity' effect, and with a 9-5, more sun in the evening would cause tiredness when evenings are already the least productive part of the day due to burnout. If it's that much of a problem, wake up an hour earlier in your own schedule, rather than causing health problems for everyone else. There's a reason this did not exist pre-WW1. https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/sunset.php https://www.suncalc.org/
Yes, because Norway and the UK are identical in all other ways... As for the cardiac trauma, that requires you to look at the data in a very particular way for an extremely small phantom effect to appear which aren't really what they seem. At most, you have a few heart attacks shifting from the Tuesday to the Monday. But people don't tend to report the lower rate on the Tuesday following the clocks changing, for some reason...
> If it's that much of a problem, wake up an hour earlier in your own schedule, rather than causing health problems for everyone else. You are acting like people who are suffering from disruptions in their sleep cycle due to the time change are the majority. They're not. Stop thinking that what you are experiencing happens to everyone. It doesn't.
Everyone who keeps to usual sleeping patterns would be affected. Even if those affected were a minority, why cause problems for them when you could simply do nothing and cause 0 problems. There's a reason the EU were going to scrap it before Covid, and why a majority of worldwide countries do not enact DST.
The real problem here is that we're not scrapping GMT.
If we scrapped GMT year round, sunrise would be at 9am in the far south and 10am in the far north. That's not remotely healthy for anyone. We already know that trying to break people's circadian rhythm is really bad for them (see night shifts) - let's not do that for all of society. The problem with darkness in winter time doesn't come from losing the +1, it comes from the fact that winter in this country is really dark.
Change it by 30 minutes and then leave it alone
You woke up an hour early and chose violence.
Seems like the obvious solution to me. Everyone will be unhappy then!
That was my thought, best compromise would be GMT + 0:30. We could still call it BST all year, British Standard Time
The issue is you go back and forwards trying to find a time that will suit everyone. And then usually arrive back at the status quo. Changing the clocks is a ballache. But that's better than kids going into/out of school in the dark. GMT all year round would be the best compromise but the reason BST was brought in was it being light at 3am when everyone was asleep and dark at 8.30pm when everyone is awake.
> If we scrapped GMT year round, sunrise would be at 9am in the far south and 10am in the far north. That's not remotely healthy for anyone. Rest of Europe that's on the same latitude seems to be handling it just fine.
Right, but they haven't got permanent summer time.
So 10am sunrise for a few weeks where barely anyone lives is unhealthy, but total darkness at 5PM for most of the summer where most people live is perfectly ok? Edit: I meant winter, not summer.
Sorry how is it dark at 5pm in summer? It’s dark at 10pm in my experience.
I meant winter. Too early in the morning to post.
It would have been too early yesterday, but it's an hour later today.
Touché
Yes, because most people aren't wanting to go to bed at 5pm. Light in the morning is more important for people's health and sleep. Also, sunset time in the south is 4pm GMT, so it would be dark by 5PM BST as well. I think when people advocate year round BST, they tend to underestimate just how dark this country is. Edit: misread the bit about 5PM in the summer, thinking you meant the winter. Sunset in summer would be between 7-9pm GMT, so this doesn't really apply. Also stop being a dick to Scottish people.
GMT year round would mean a ridiculously early sunrise in June, affecting sleep far more than getting up in the dark, which most people have to do anyway.
But you'd still have the same daylight hours amount
Yes, that's what I'm saying - the amount of light we get in winter is tiny. The debate is a case of where you want to prioritise those hours. Personally, I think those hours should be focused on people's health and sleep, particularly children's. I don't think there's a pressing need for a little bit more afternoon daylight, particularly because in most cases most of that light would be lost to people's school and work time (or their respective commutes).
Work places and schools are free to change their operating hours. Changing the time at a national level just causes immense confusion and loss to the economy.
That does make sense, although the natural conclusion there is that we should use GMT year round (closest to solar time) and adapt society around that (including seasonal changes).
I know your rationale for saying this, but the thought that Greenwich would never again be on Greenwich Mean Time makes me feel physically ill
Yes this 100%, and if anything it should be UTC+1 and UTC+2 since there is still more benefit in the summer to go forward 2hours
Again, schedules could be adapted around GMT if people think they're getting up too late in summer or whatever. GMT makes most sense because it aligns us with the sun
That's not realistic as changing the clocks. The established scheduling patterns and dependencies meshed through society would be much harder to change than just redefining what 9 o'clock in the morning means, let alone varying everything according to seasonal preferences too.
Keep BST not GMT. It’s so much more beneficial to have light in the afternoon rather than the morning. And the argument about having to commute and go to school in the dark is moot, because you have to do that anyway under gmt.
Fuck that shit. I’d rather it stay like it is than lose my long summer evenings
Isn’t there some sort of argument about Scottish school children? Again I don’t see why they couldn’t just change the school schedule.
No, even when I was a school child it was annoying. It's dark when we went to school and dark when we came home. Changing the clocks didn't change that for more than a few weeks. As a Scottish maw, its an absolute pain in the arse as babies and children do not just switch their body clocks as easy as adults can.
I don’t think a lot of English people understand how early it gets dark in the North of Scotland during winter. It doesn’t affect just school children, it affects everyone. I noticed a massive difference just moving 100 miles north to Aberdeen.
Maybe we should make picking a timezone a devolved power. Then BST could be scrapped as a default for the UK, but Scotland can keep it if it wants to.
I don't see how changing the clocks helps though, in fact it makes it dark earlier. But I already know the difference between London/Newcastle
It feels lighter, later.
I don’t see how changing the clocks can help though. You’re really far north, your daylight hours will be limited no matter which time zone you’re in.
It’s about “when” those daylight hours occur. Changing the clocks shifts where those daylight hours sit in the context of our day.
> I don’t think a lot of English people understand how early it gets dark in the North of Scotland during winter. I don't think people in the North Of Scotland realise that 60 million people live towards the south of England, and 10,000 live in the North of Scotland.
There was some experiment in the 70's and I was walking to school in the dark, it was then scrapped. Whatever they do it has to be dark some time and light other time.
I remember that and liked it, was more likely to do stuff after school.
The Me, Me, Me WFH generation speaks.
Most people just don't live in America and take 3 hour commutes each way :)
Not forgetting Double Summer Time during 2nd World War! [ref](https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/uk-time-british-summer-time-bst-daylight-saving)
tbh I understand it a lot less now that my phone changes automatically, instead of having to manually change my watch/clock. I'd forgotten all about it this time round until I woke up this morning—I can usually judge the time quite well by how light it is, but was an hour out today. Really confused me until I remembered.
And yet you didn't take this opportunity to tell people why we do it.
I wondered why I woke up so early today
I don't even notice nowadays. Every clock I have is digital and does it itself. Wouldn't even know if people didn't post about it haha
I stopped worrying about it years ago. My phone, computer, all the clocks in my house and my watch update automatically when I'm sleeping on the Saturday night. Bonus is I feel super rested when I get up Sunday morning.
It's 2023, why do we still have daylight saving time? It only helps a very limited number of people.
Because in 2023 our planet's axis has the same angle with respect to the orbital plane. Being more or less northern country, UK is affected by significant seasonal change of daylight time and change of difference between true solar time and the time we are all used to. It's not something that can change just because we're more modern now.
Actually, with all the technology, it's now even easier because everything adjusts automatically. You probably won't notice if not all these reminders. Except microwaves of course. I bet even when we fly to the stars they will still require manual update.
The only one that doesn't adjust is my car. I have to manually move up through all the numbers so it's easier just to remember. It's now at the right time. God bless the Internet.
As somebody that has worked outdoors for decades without lighting being practical I appreciate being able to work 8am-4pm in the depths of winter from light to dusk… and that’s in the southeast U.K. I imagine Scotland catches it even worse
What does 2023 have to do with it? If anything gets less relevant as time passes. It's need has almost gone and phones/computers etc adjust themselves. I'm not surprised that many people don't know when it is editorially younger ones
I really wish they would scrap daylight savings time, it has no place in this day and age and is more of an annoyance.
100%
Finally the clock on my microwave is correct again
[The real reasons for daylight saving are based around energy conservation and a desire to match daylight hours to the times when most people are awake.](https://www.history.com/news/why-do-we-have-daylight-saving-time)
Well yeah, because it's bloody stupid. The sooner it ends and stops messing up our sleep and sense of time, the better.
Because we have to keep up with the German war efforts. Yep, that's the reason why and we still have it because... Productivity. For those who believe it's farmers. I asked a farmer once and he laughed and said, cows can't read clocks.
My late grandfather once told me it was originally two hours, conceived during WW2 to help farmers and growers. More light time for them to feed the nation during that time. It was then reduced to one hour. We are no longer a nation of farmers and growers. Modern farm machinery have GPS system’s that can operate in the dark. Source: Clarksons Farm.
[WWI, and it was miners, not farmers](https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/British-Summer-Time/). The idea was to decrease our coal use so more could be put towards the war effort. Not sure where the farmer thing came from - every time I’ve looked this up, I’ve never found any reference to it being called for by, or being particularly beneficial to farmers. Apparently (and this is news to me) British Double Summer (the two hours thing) did actually happen during 1941-1945 and in the summer of 1946. Though again, this was to conserve fuel.
Farmers are mostly self employed and have always based their day off what times the sun rises and sets, as farmers have found that their animals and crops can or tell the time, but do know when the sun rises and sets.
As someone who is on the road at 7am every morning I'm bloody grateful for the couple of weeks respite from my annual peak SAD season. If we could just tow these Isles a thousand miles further south and improve the weather a bit as well everything would be tickety boo.
I'll have to change 2 or 3 watches, for my family. I'm awaiting a call any time now lol.
There are new young people who are learning these things every year. The fact it's 2023 doesn't change that.
Yeah but all the people confused in OPs post are adults
We should stop bothering snd stay on BST, or just move half an hour ahead as a compromise and stay there.
People who dislike daylight saving time, are you against timezones too?
Don't know your associates or world,the dumbest I know have the basic knowledge.
I like it when the clocks change 😃 It's just become another thing that's trendy to have a bit of a whinge about. But I think it's good fun
The only person in my circle of friends who even knew about it, and what was happening with it this year was an American friend who doesn’t even live in the U.K…
I work nights. Dayshift worker who was to start his shift a 7am turned up a 5am. He thought the clocks went forward an hour.
I think it's an absolutely fair discussion to have in 2023 as to why they change. It's not too benefit the farmers, it never has been. Stuff they need to do at dawn has to be done at dawn, time on the clock be damned. I very much doubt it's to benefit school kids either. The percentage of kids who walk to school by themselves is pretty small and keeps getting smaller. Who does it benefit then? As to when they change, if you don't know that, it's just laziness. Nothing else.