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Joined: Mar 15, 2006 Posts: 3219 Location: Windlesham, Surrey
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 11:57 am Post subject:
But why mess around with the clocks at all? If we stick to GMT all year (as we did until the First World War) we don't have to change the clocks twice a year and businesses can choose when to start and finish.
Surely that's simplest of all? _________________ Anita
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Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 12:05 pm Post subject:
Anita wrote:
But why mess around with the clocks at all? If we stick to GMT all year (as we did until the First World War) we don't have to change the clocks twice a year and businesses can choose when to start and finish.
Surely that's simplest of all?
I'm all for NOT changing the clocks twice a year but there are valid reasons why BST fits better than GMT.
It's much easier to agree to stick to BST than require every school and business that would otherwise benefit to start an hour later. _________________ Darren Griffin
Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 10118 Location: Bexhill, South Sussex, UK
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:15 pm Post subject:
DennisN wrote:
As for the Meridian line being 70 meters (not even metres, that's about 87 and a bit yards, innit?), it was exactly right when I saw it not many years ago - there was a sign saying "This is the Meridian line, take a photo of it".
Absolutely correct. We said 'Here it is' and defined where it should be, and as it's an arbitary position, as opposed to a physical position, as is the equator, who has the right to tell us we were wrong????
Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 2543 Location: Rainham, Kent. England.
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 5:30 pm Post subject:
Quote:
BST in Winter and BST +1 in Summer
I meant to have put GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in Summer.
For those that remember the last experiment with permanent BST, a couple of years if I remember, surely preferred to have the extra hour of daylight in the Winter evenings than the hour in the morning when most people were still in bed.
Maybe those who want the clocks left alone would prefer it to go back to pre Railway time, where the times were different in London and Penzance and everywhere in between.
To check the Meridian line at Greenwich I would suggest going there, standing on the line and when the 24 hour clock reads midday check their shadow.
Finally, ignoring the Greens and I certainly do, we could all be saving an hours energy cost by turning lights on an hour later. _________________ Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar.
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14907 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:05 am Post subject:
Lost_Property wrote:
Maybe those who want the clocks left alone would prefer it to go back to pre Railway time, where the times were different in London and Penzance and everywhere in between.
No they weren't different. I always remember my grandad telling me that when they worried about the church clock accuracy, they'd send somebody down to London with a pencil and a bit of paper. He'd go to Big Ben, look at the time, write it down and bring it back to Yorkshire and we'd set all the clocks right again.
So I vote resoundingly for GMT all year round and for taking photos of me standing on the Meridian line. _________________ Dennis
Joined: 24/06/2003 00:22:12 Posts: 2946 Location: Escaped to the Antipodies! 36.83°S 174.75°E
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:42 am Post subject:
M8TJT wrote:
Didn't take long for the Green Brigade to jump aboard
Oi! Don't call ME a greenie! That's fighting talk.
M8TJT wrote:
Skippy wrote:
Yeah, the British invented time along with Greenwich but that's moved on now. Even the "meridian line" that the tourists take millions of photos of is not actually 0 degrees latitude any more, it's off by about 70 meters.....
Did we get it wrong, or has Johnny Foreigner decided to move it, just like he kidnapped our time standard?
PS It's not 0 deg lat, Greenwich is on 0 deg Longitude (Well nearly anyway )
DOH! Yeah I mean latitude. Hmm, if we could move to the equator then it wouldn't matter. Weather would be a bit warmer too.
DennisN wrote:
As for the Meridian line being 70 meters (not even metres, that's about 87 and a bit yards, innit?), it was exactly right when I saw it not many years ago - there was a sign saying "This is the Meridian line, take a photo of it". Now maybe that was a lie, but I believed it and have always ever since been happy to tell my grandchildren that I have stood on the Meridian line.
No, the meridian line is exactly where it was put donkeys years ago, it's just that the 0 degrees latitude in the WGS84 map datum (the one we all use) has moved. Even the OS maps don't line up with the old Greenwich Meridian.
The Greenwich Meridian line is somewhere near 51.477899, -0.001506, check it out in Google or Bing maps and compare it with the location 51.477899, -0.00000.
And be careful talking about GMT too. Pedantically, GMT (the observed solar time at Greenwich) can differ from UTC (the actual time we all use) by +/- 0.9 of a second. This is because GMT is based on actual the rotation speed of the earth (which varies) and UTC is based on the time kept by an atomic clock so the two get out of sync. This is why they add leap seconds every few years, the last one was 31 Dec 2008.
Unfortunately, we can't have the day speeding up or slowing down by a bit each day so we had to standardise on the length of a day from the atomic clock.
GPS units also follow atomic time which doesn't use leap seconds so in the GPS data is the number of seconds offset to add to GPS time to get UTC. This is why GPS receivers sometimes show the time as being 15 seconds fast after a factory reset because it may take 15 minutes before it receives the information about the offset yet.
The GPS system also sends a warning flag if a leap second is going to be added in the next few months.
Unfortunately, all this geeky stuff is actually important to some of us who need super accurate time so we have to understand it all.
Back on topic my vote goes to switching to Central European Time, it just makes it less hassle travelling back and forth and we get longer evenings. _________________ Gone fishing!
Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 10118 Location: Bexhill, South Sussex, UK
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 9:45 am Post subject:
Skippy wrote:
DOH! Yeah I mean latitude. .
No Skippy. I really think you mean longitude. Have I gocha again??? But I do like the idea of moving the equator a bit further north to improve our climate a bit.
Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 2543 Location: Rainham, Kent. England.
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:15 pm Post subject:
Quote:
No they weren't different.
Initially I thought 'Dennis has that wrong' but kept reading and assume it was part of your jokey trip to London.
Most of my life I've worked shift work so times and hours of darkness meant nothing, except maybe in Winter back when I was bus driving , the 16:00 to midnight shift meant driving round in darkness in Winter the whole shift. Then when a train guard on 18:00 to 02:00 the same.
I think we should change to California time, they have sunshine all year round. _________________ Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar.
Joined: Mar 15, 2006 Posts: 3219 Location: Windlesham, Surrey
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:35 pm Post subject:
Darren wrote:
I'm all for NOT changing the clocks twice a year but there are valid reasons why BST fits better than GMT.
It's much easier to agree to stick to BST than require every school and business that would otherwise benefit to start an hour later.
Darren, neither of us will convince the other, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
But I'll just point out that currently twice as many votes have been cast for permanent GMT (10) as for permanent BST(5)! _________________ Anita
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Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 2543 Location: Rainham, Kent. England.
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 5:54 pm Post subject:
Quote:
But why mess around with the clocks at all? If we stick to GMT all year (as we did until the First World War) we don't have to change the clocks twice a year and businesses can choose when to start and finish.
The same if we had permanent BST Anita.
It appears the changing of the clocks twice a year is what the majority, so far, are against. Although that's not as bad as it used to be as nowadays many electrical products change the time automatically. Having said that, it's still a pain having to mess about with those that don't. (Thinks.... Did I change the one in the car?)
We put our lights on just after 4pm GMT, SE England, if we were still BST we would have saved an hours electricity. _________________ Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar.
Joined: Mar 15, 2006 Posts: 3219 Location: Windlesham, Surrey
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 6:22 pm Post subject:
Lost_Property wrote:
We put our lights on just after 4pm GMT, SE England, if we were still BST we would have saved an hours electricity.
But what about the people who'd have to put their lights on in the morning if we were still on BST?
Edited to add: Sorry, Richard. You posted while I was still thinking about it!
There's no need to change the clocks in order for people to change their habits. I'm old-fashioned and believe that Greenwich Mean Time is the time for this country, but I'll never convince you of that, and you'll never convince me otherwise, so I'll withdraw from the discussion!
The vote's interesting though! _________________ Anita
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my vote goes to switching to Central European Time, it just makes it less hassle travelling back and forth and we get longer evenings.
But I do like the idea of moving the equator a bit further north to improve our climate a bit. 
, the 16:00 to midnight shift meant driving round in darkness in Winter the whole shift. Then when a train guard 
on 18:00 to 02:00 the same.
