Double Summertime...

[Osbourne One-Nil]

PP, we can't just go around slapping people for having stupid ideas. If we could

...then PP would be black and blue.

[Bottesford]

We do however need less sleep in summer than in winter - same goes for food with more cravings for fatty 'hearty' food during the darker time of year. I eat more chocolate in winter and near enough stop during summer. Winter ales are 'heavy' whereas summer ales are 'light'....

The only beneficiaries I can see will be the unemployed.

I'm not unemployed and I would definitely benefit from changing to 'double summertime'. Winter especially as GMT means 4 months of coming home in darkness instead of 2 months on BST. It isn't fun or pleasant cycling in rush hour traffic in darkness (with October clock move being the worst period) so anything that cuts that down would certainly benefit me. This would mean darker mornings with a few weeks in December being dark. However 2 of those I'm on xmas holiday so don't matter and even so, traffic (vehicle, cycle and pedestrian) are considerably less in the mornings anyway.

If we exclude the extremes which everyone so far has mentioned - just take 25th April as an example... into the lighter end but certainly not the peak.

Currently here it gets light at 0545 and dark at 2021.

Lets take a roll call - who is awake before 0545 and thus needs lights on or would like to do some gardening, etc. and who is awake after 2021 and thus needs lights on/ wants to do outside stuff away from flood lighting?

I'm fairly sure some will say pre 0545 but *all* will say post 2021!

Now we switch to BST+1...

New roll call - who's awake pre 0645 and who's awake post 2121?

I suspect lots more will be pre 0645 but post 2121 will remain near enough everyone.

With that information what is more efficient energy wise and for doing the gardening (for example)?

The problem I've noticed with this debate is you're thinking of the season extremes which can be a pain as they are now anyway. But the advantages during most other parts of the year are surely worth thinking about too?

Get up earlier then.....

I've already said why this simply isn't practical nor desirable for a majority of people who are bound to the current working patterns.

[Snowyowl9]

They`ve tried this in the past and it was so unpopular it failed.

For it to be dark until 10am on dull wet days in January especially if theres a SE-ly it seems darker still.

In scotland it`ll be dark until 11am half the day has gone before outside workers can do anything.

[Weather-history]

Do any other country have this kind of debate? Does Chile, who traverses far more lines of latitude than the UK? Do Japan?

Whats the smallest country in the world that has more than one time-zone?

Would we be having this debate if a certain Austrian gentleman had not got assassinated in Sarajevo?

Edited February 25, 2011 by Mr_Data

[Terminal Moraine]

Apart from my inherent opposition to tinkering with the clocks to fit in with our all important 24 hour lifestyles, changing to double summer time would be a major inconvenience to all amateur met' observers. It would mean the 0900 g.m.t readings, which is the standard end of 24 hour period, would not be until 11.00 a.m; well after the time most people are at work.

I don't know how the Met Office would deal with this as they rely on a large number of amateur observers to submit data each day ( like me ) and they are not at all keen of taking readings at 0900 b.s.t in summer when it should be 10.00, let alone at 9.00 when it should be 11.00.

I suppose one answer would be to provide all data contributors with automatic stations but with the current budget restrictions I can't see that happening.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I certainly don't buy any of this extra tourism nonsense. When I'm on holiday, I'm not sitting there looking at my watch deciding whether to do things or not, and I'm not restricted by a normal working day before I can do anything fun, so how does shifting to double summer time provide any extra hours for tourist recreation?

It's going to be utterly impossible to provide a system that pleases everyone. Farmers will always work as required, and not by whatever time the clock says, and for those that travel to work or school, you'll be robbing Peter to pay Paul in the depths of winter. It would also bugger up my nocturnal activities as in the middle of summer, it would be around midnight before it even began to get dark.

Ultimately though, it's in some ways irrelevant as the hours of daylight will remain the same, whatever anyone does.

[Methuselah]

A two-hour change would be a lot easier for people to cope with, if it were done over two years??

[Big Innes Madori]

We do however need less sleep in summer than in winter - same goes for food with more cravings for fatty 'hearty' food during the darker time of year. I eat more chocolate in winter and near enough stop during summer. Winter ales are 'heavy' whereas summer ales are 'light'....

I'm not unemployed and I would definitely benefit from changing to 'double summertime'. Winter especially as GMT means 4 months of coming home in darkness instead of 2 months on BST. It isn't fun or pleasant cycling in rush hour traffic in darkness (with October clock move being the worst period) so anything that cuts that down would certainly benefit me. This would mean darker mornings with a few weeks in December being dark. However 2 of those I'm on xmas holiday so don't matter and even so, traffic (vehicle, cycle and pedestrian) are considerably less in the mornings anyway.

If we exclude the extremes which everyone so far has mentioned - just take 25th April as an example... into the lighter end but certainly not the peak.

Currently here it gets light at 0545 and dark at 2021.

Lets take a roll call - who is awake before 0545 and thus needs lights on or would like to do some gardening, etc. and who is awake after 2021 and thus needs lights on/ wants to do outside stuff away from flood lighting?

I'm fairly sure some will say pre 0545 but *all* will say post 2021!

Now we switch to BST+1...

New roll call - who's awake pre 0645 and who's awake post 2121?

I suspect lots more will be pre 0645 but post 2121 will remain near enough everyone.

With that information what is more efficient energy wise and for doing the gardening (for example)?

The problem I've noticed with this debate is you're thinking of the season extremes which can be a pain as they are now anyway. But the advantages during most other parts of the year are surely worth thinking about too?

I've already said why this simply isn't practical nor desirable for a majority of people who are bound to the current working patterns.

This is the best post of the entire debate

Give me the daylight for longer in the evening/afternoon every time

The current long term set up.

Here in my location by mid Nov to mid Jan, if you have a horrible wet overcast day (which most days are up here) it can be getting dark by 2.30 pm and then not proper daylight until 8.30/9.00 am.

Summertime

Ahh man, on the few occasions up here when we have high pressure overhead and a good cloudless sky, it can still be light enough to sit out without lights until about 11.30 pm and it never really gets proper dark as the sun just dips below the Nothern horizon for a couple of hours and the back up in the North East.

Daylight is then coming back by 2.30 am and is good by about 3.15 am

Move all of the above mentioned times forward by two hours (Double Summertime) and

Big Innes

[frogesque]

I am perfectly capable of adjusting to long winter nights (clear frosty skies watching stars etc. based on UT) or having a summer evening barbie while the sun (or the rain!) comes down. Why do politicians, who got us into this mess in the first place, imagine we are so inept that we can't run our own lives to suit our own needs?

I don't care what the good folks in Westminster decide. Move to any timezone then forget about it - job done. Just don't keep messing about with the damned clocks making me suffer from bianual jet lag.

I really, really HATE it!

As a side note: all of you with 1000W halogen multiple insecurity lights blazing away all night during winter evenings - could you pretty pretty please SWITCH THEM OFF!. There are areas of the country where it is virtually impossible to see a crescent moon never mind an actual star!

[Bottesford]

So in addition to wanting to change the clocks to 'help tourism' they also want to move the May Day bank holiday to either St Georges Day (23rd April) or Trafalgar Day (21st October).

They're claiming this will 'extend the tourist season'.

OK I don't think too many of us would mind moving May Day back a week or so to St. Georges Day but will they do like they do with other bank hols - make it fall on the nearest Monday or will it appear randomly during the week (and this year it's a Saturday!). Not sure there would be much point celebrating the day up to a week away from the event so that's unclear.

However, moving it to October is a very poor choice. The thing about May 1st (or April 23rd) is it is light from early till well into the evening and the weather generally not too bad (April being our driest month on average). The thing about late October is that it is dark, generally wet (our wettest month on average) and generally cold - a very poor choice! I would welcome a 'clock move' bank holiday to get over the shock of it being suddenly dark half way through the afternoon - but only in addition to the existing May holiday - not instead of!

[Weather-history]

So in addition to wanting to change the clocks to 'help tourism' they also want to move the May Day bank holiday to either St Georges Day (23rd April) or Trafalgar Day (21st October).

They're claiming this will 'extend the tourist season'.

OK I don't think too many of us would mind moving May Day back a week or so to St. Georges Day but will they do like they do with other bank hols -

I would have thought this year would show why you can't have a St George's Bank holiday. Look at when Easter falls. <_<

Also I think the arguement is really that they are far too many bank holidays in the spring anyway and need to be spread out. Easter is never going to be a fixed date.

Just a minute, isn't Easter is when the tourist season really kicks into gear? Its the first public holidays since the Christmas and New Year's festivities.

So I would have thought the tourist season begins at Easter?

Edited March 5, 2011 by Mr_Data

[Essan]

The moving the May Day Bank holiday in England and Wales (but presumably keeping it in Scotland and N Ireland - who already get more Bank holidays than the rest of the UK) is even more bizarre than the notion of switching to beta time.

Still, what do you expect when a bunch of politicians are allowed to run the country

[Dorsetbred]

SO the idea of extending the tourist season, hmm.

Will tourists want to come to the UK in October, a typically drab and neither here nor there month, I think not.

It therefore has to be a season opener, oh well I hope somebody tells the tourists we doing it for them, and for no other reason!

Edited March 5, 2011 by Dorsetbred