Yes, it's that time of year when not only the young spooks get let loose to "trick or treat" us but we have to remember to change the faces of clocks by an hour and our own body clocks get disorientated. This is something that the dog simply does not understand and he looks at me quizzically when his food bowl is not filled when he feels it should be or that his lead does not appear when he is ready to go out and check the days latest news and ... the boss isn't showing any signs of heading in that direction. Disappointed sighs ensue.
There's been much discussion recently about removing this twice yearly blip in our lives.
Do we stay in constant GMT or do we have to put up with GMT/BST that is the debatable question and around here that sounds more like a discussion about agricultural diseases.
Now for a few interesting facts ... GMT, Greenwich Meantime, was first established in London in 1675 and was initially for maritime use, but the first time zone in the world was started in Britain on Dec 1st 1847, however it did not become legal time across the whole of Britain until just over 100 years later, on August 3rd 1880. The reason for this 'one time for all' was due to the need to synchronise railway time tables across a nation which until then had relied on the sun to calculate the local mean time, LMT. For example, Manchester was eight minutes behind London, Penzance twenty behind; the further the distance, the greater the time difference. This caused much confusion to passengers, understandably, because time tables could not be successfully implemented up and down the country.
Interestingly, the term "passing the time of day" goes back to coach and horse travel, when the coachmen on main routes from London carried chronometers with London time and at each stop where there was a town clock, this was a good way of maintaining some synchronicity with the city. Old British clocks often had two minute hands, one for local time the other for GMT. Also coaches carried the latest city news and passed the time of day discussing various topics as horses were changed and refreshments partaken.
BST (daylight saving time) was established by the British Summertime act of 1916. Just to further confuse the issue, in 1968 they experimented for three years with another BST, British Standard Time which kept our clocks one hour ahead of GMT for the whole year. Confused? I sure am!
It has been a bone of contention ever since and not one my dog is willing to chew over.
Now some followers of my blog have asked when I am going to introduce my mad mutt,
so now is as good a time as any, to illustrate his best, questioning look ...
Do we stay in constant GMT or do we have to put up with GMT/BST that is the debatable question and around here that sounds more like a discussion about agricultural diseases.
Now for a few interesting facts ... GMT, Greenwich Meantime, was first established in London in 1675 and was initially for maritime use, but the first time zone in the world was started in Britain on Dec 1st 1847, however it did not become legal time across the whole of Britain until just over 100 years later, on August 3rd 1880. The reason for this 'one time for all' was due to the need to synchronise railway time tables across a nation which until then had relied on the sun to calculate the local mean time, LMT. For example, Manchester was eight minutes behind London, Penzance twenty behind; the further the distance, the greater the time difference. This caused much confusion to passengers, understandably, because time tables could not be successfully implemented up and down the country.
Interestingly, the term "passing the time of day" goes back to coach and horse travel, when the coachmen on main routes from London carried chronometers with London time and at each stop where there was a town clock, this was a good way of maintaining some synchronicity with the city. Old British clocks often had two minute hands, one for local time the other for GMT. Also coaches carried the latest city news and passed the time of day discussing various topics as horses were changed and refreshments partaken.
BST (daylight saving time) was established by the British Summertime act of 1916. Just to further confuse the issue, in 1968 they experimented for three years with another BST, British Standard Time which kept our clocks one hour ahead of GMT for the whole year. Confused? I sure am!
It has been a bone of contention ever since and not one my dog is willing to chew over.
Now some followers of my blog have asked when I am going to introduce my mad mutt,
so now is as good a time as any, to illustrate his best, questioning look ...
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| "You've done what?!" |
"Yes, I'm going to change the clocks ... like it or not!"
"After all ... who's Boss?"
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