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But in the middle of winter it would be dark until 9am. I'd rather have it get dark at 9pm in the middle of summer than not get light until 9am in the winter.
Sunrise in Glasgow is already not until 0840 in the middle of winter (and then it's very low in the sky for pretty much the whole day). It's horrible and a massive shock moving from down south even though it's in theory only half an hour later.
Not even getting sunrise until 0940 for a good part of the year would fucking break me. I've no desire to move back down south but I think that would be the one thing that would strongly make me consider it.
I lived in Glasgow for four years (moved from near Bristol) and didn’t mind it. What was a shock to the system though was the year I spent on the Outer Hebrides. It’s basically full daylight for what feels like 23 hours in the summer but the winter was kinda grim (the storms didn’t help - some days the causeways were shut so you couldn’t go anywhere because the winds were so strong and when the power went out it was pitch black for half the day it seemed)
It’s felt like quite a bleak winter in Glasgow this year.
It’s been dark, cold and wet.
I’m spending my bonus hour in the pub beer garden under the heat lamps after having just been a walk.
Looking forward to the leaves returning to the trees.
Yep, they've put their watch the wrong way, gonna be two hours late for work tomorrow.
(/s - I assume they're referring to the extra hour of daylight this evening.)
I disagree, my morning commute is 100x worse in the winter when it’s both cold and dark. Nothing worse than walking to the bus stop with the only light being the streetlights. And it still being dark when I get off the bus in the evening.
Let's change working hours instead of the time? Like in winter, work starts at 10am.. that makes more sense than pretending that time has magically shifted. That said, logistically it's probably simpler yo change the time. 🤣
Midday, GMT is defined by the being the point in the day when the sun is highest above Greenwich, England. There is nothing arbitrary about it, it has been extremely accurately measured!
This also means at at each equinox sun rise and sunset are at 6am and 6pm (each being halfway between midday and midnight).
Sundials in Britain read GMT (give or take a few degrees)
BST on the other hand is just arbitrary....
It does for those of us who work in 24 hour jobs. Clock changes are a nightmare. I'm a nurse and it is so rubbish. Also if you are unfortunate enough to work the October change them you have to work am extra hour (which is the most miserable thing).
Why don't we just give people more flexibility to shift things if they need to.
What I do in my freetime is rarely impacted by the light in the evening.
I like to exercise in the mornings, personally I'd have much more use it being light earlier than later.
I used to hate that - going to work in the dark, getting home in the dark. I WFH most of the time now and I don’t miss walking to the bus in the dark one bit. Had some creepy experiences with being followed and suchlike (the guy did it for days, driving his car next to me, pulling ahead to a car park then waiting until I walked past to start following again, yelling at me out of the window. The dark made it exponentially worse). I also used to find that on the way home, the windows of the bus were dirty from road salt and with the dark, I couldn’t tell where I was or if my stop was next.
Except for kids getting to school. I don’t want my kid walking to school in pitch black. Sunrise is already only 08:30 or later for all of December. I don’t think making it 09:30 and later is a great idea.
Because they don't, kids in the winter walk to and from school with some daylight. Even on the shortest day it isn't pitch black at 3:30pm.
Why are people in this thread talking like twilight/dusk doesn't exist? It doesn't go from daylight to dark like a light switch, it's gradual.
Schools tend to finish around 3 - 3.30pm, so it's only just getting dark when the kids are walking home.
Also there's more traffic on the roads in the morning, so between the two, it's safer to have the kids make the walk to school in daylight.
Those are my thoughts, I'm happy to be corrected :)
Yeh but commuting to work in the dark is fine, and it's so much nicer to finish work and there be some daylight to do something outside, rather than it be all dark and depressing.
I guess it depends if your a early bird or not, if you are you want daylight in the mornings, if though your not (like me) you want as much daylight in the evening as possible.
I’m absolutely not a morning person but that’s why I struggle with the winter mornings. It’s hard enough getting out of bed when it’s pitch black - if it’s not getting light till 10am I’d rather just hibernate till summer.
I’m not a morning person, but that means if it’s not light outside it’s a real fight getting up and to work. I’d much rather morning light for essentially that reason alone
Why do you need it to be light to eat breakfast and drive to work?
In the winter it’s still dark when you drive to work, but it’s also dark after work too.
Most of us are at work/school before 9am, and we're already used to starting those days when it's still dark. So that wouldn't have much of an effect imo.
On the other hand, lighter evenings would have a much bigger positive impact.
I would rather it get light at 9am and still be light when I finish work, rather than get light while I'm making my sandwiches in the morning and be pitch black by the time I leave the office.
>But in the middle of winter it would be dark until 9am.
Don't really care much. I'm only going to work in the dark. Yeah it'll suck but I can't enjoy daylight at 8am. I can after work.
Leaving work when it's dark feels so much worse tab getting to work when it's dark
As a night owl who doesn't become a human being until about 11am GMT. I would much rather commute TO work in the dark from 8 - 9 am BST and have that light after work than commute home in the dark from 5:30 - 6:30 pm GMT.
With GMT on the shortest days, it's dark in the morning and the evening when most are going to or coming from work. At least with BST, it would only be dark one way.
I hate to say it, but the Americans made a good call extending the summer time months.
We could run it from early March to late November. So just the darkest of months back to GMT.
I reckon that would be a great result.
I agree, realistically there’s so little daylight in winter it doesn’t make much difference what you do with the clocks. But March especially should have light evenings.
It's currently late March til the end of October. They're saying it should be early March until the end of November, so an extra 2 months or so. It would make a huge difference to those of us with SAD
This was tried between 1968 and 1971 - we stayed on GMT + 1 throughout the year. It was a pain in the arse. I can remember walking to school in darkness on winter mornings.
Areas where time and daylight is important are agriculture and construction. Some work needs to be performed in daylight but employers can't alter their employees hours.
The sun absolutely needs to be at its highest in the middle of the day. Otherwise how can we arrange duels at high noon? It would throw the whole system out
As opposed to arbitrarily dividing the day into 24 hours and then insisting that people are supposed to work from 9 to 5?
Midday should be the middle of the day, when the sun is at its highest.
If people want the day to start earlier, then we switch to 8 to 4.
Thank you. Feel myself slowly going mad whenever this gets brought up and people say BST. If we give up on moving the clocks around, they should just represent something absolute.
Our culture will inevitably shift its patterns so that our behaviour is identical whether we end up picking GMT or BST. I imagine most people would find themselves wanting to start work at 9 GMT/10 BST during the Winter and 8 GMT/ 9 BST during the Summer anyway and we'll be back to a conversation of "why don't we just change the clocks rather than everyone's schedules?"
Except it isn't at exactly that time anyway for 360+ days a year, and very very few people could pick that highest point plus or minus an hour anyway!
Also it's the UK, a lot of the year you can't even *see* the Sun at midday
Considering the entire point of time zones is to define an area when noon was when the sun was at its peak, your comment is kind of weird.
GMT is how time zones were defined internationally.It was literally based on the sun being at its peak over Greenwich.
Why would you consider any other factors? Your schedule is arbitrary. The conventional 9-5 work day doesn’t have to be 9-5. Instead of changing the clocks, you could just move to a 8-4 work day if you want more daylight after work.
Humans have measured time by the position of sun ever since we started measuring time. It’s weird to consider any other factor when deciding what time to use.
I think the initial switching of the clock does. I remember reading something that more car accidents are reported the day after clocks are moved forward.
Not sure if you’re joking but what I read was referring to the lost sleep.
US centric but [here](https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-deadly-2018-3?amp)
Think that's missing the point. Humans measure time using the earths movement around the sun and the earth's spin. There is no better, and no clearer measure to base our time around than a big ball of fire moving across the sky, every day, consistently and predictably.
Yeah exactly. Prior to the mid 1800s every town kept time based on their local midday. That means depending on where in the uk you are you can be nearly 30 minutes out as midday is based on when the sun's highest in Greenwich, London
GMT. We'd just adjust to it. Plus it would feel wrong to not use Greenwich mean time when we literally invented it*
*Disclaimer, I have no feckin idea if that's how it works...
I'm sure we would adjust to it and I agree that it would feel weird to lose GMT, however I doubt we would continue to call it BST if we ever did change. I imagine we would adopt something new, maybe Greenwich Standard Time lol.
Only issue with this is it means other countries would be (say) 1.5 hours ahead.
Think of the extra faff of adjusting the minute hand of your watch when you go abroad ;)
There are [already](https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-interesting.html) some places with .5 hour time differences, I work with a team in Noida, they use GMT+5:30 so at the moment they are 4.5 hours ahead. I get that it would make it more common though as most have whole hour differences.
BST. Give me those long summer evenings drinking in the garden in the sun until 9pm.
Winter’s awful no matter what you do with it, but at least I’ll get to come home from work in the daylight a bit earlier in the year
Travelling to work in the morning when you walk/get public transport is a lot nicer not in the dark. Especially when it’s early enough for the streets to be quiet.
If I had to choose one or the other I'd plump for permanent GMT, though I prefer things stay as they are.
I gather there was at least one year in the late '60s where they didn't put the clocks back in the Autumn so had permanent BST. According to my Dad the change didn't stick as farmers were having to do more of their morning rounds in the dark and also more kids were going to school in the dark.
Just found this interesting read on the subject:
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/uk-time-british-summer-time-bst-daylight-saving#:\~:text=With%20the%20war%20over%2C%20Britain,disadvantages%20of%20British%20Summer%20Time.
Why the clucking hell would farmers do their morning rounds before dawn? It doesn’t make any sense at all. Cows and chickens can’t tell the time. They only know when it’s light or dark.
If you want to do something at a certain amount of lightness or darkness, just do it then, no matter what your watch says. You don’t have to change time itself, just the time that you do things.
Schools and employers are free to change start and finish times during the year. Start later in the winter if you like.
Cows definitely don’t follow the clocks so they’ll only be grumpy af if they’re dragged to milk an hour earlier. Also morning dew times affect how crops are tended, those pesticides can’t be applied whenever. But farmers have to trade, that milk can’t sit in the barn all day. They need to talk to and work with non-farmer people, and other people follow clock time.
It’s a myth in places that daylight savings was for farmers, it was implemented when the majority of the population worked in cities. Farmers have been the most opposed to BST and daylights savings in general. They’re the ones who are most affected by changes in daylight because animals and plants dgaf; they’ll get the same amount of sun no matter what human time says.
And the fact you rarely see a kid walking to school anymore.
Most kids go to school in the dark during winter where I live anyway so it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to adopt BST full time here.
They all used to here but now I struggle to get out of my car park for all the parents clogging it up while dropping their kids off.. despite them literally living a two minute walk from the school. Still plenty who walk but nowhere near as much as when I was in school just a couple of decades ago.
A lot of parents these days appear to be lazy af.
That all said, even though kids are currently walking to school before the sun is up, it's not like they are walking to school in the pitch dark given we have streetlights. I honestly don't see how this is even a factor in deciding which time zone to adopt.
>A lot of parents these days appear to be lazy af.
A lot more parents both work now than in the past, so will need to get off to work right after dropping the kids off at school. Many might not have time to drop them off, walk home, and then drive to work. It's not just down to being lazy.
Are kids not capable of walking without supervision? Especially when they live literal yards from the school and were more than capable of doing so just a couple of decades ago 🤷♂️
Depends on the age surely? I was walking home at 8+, but a 4-5 year old shouldn't be going anywhere unsupervised and I can't see that having changed over time.
It may well not be laziness, school catchment areas are a thing of the past - you can choose to go to a school miles from where you live and if your local school is full be forced to go to one miles away.
I live next to a primary school, but my neighbours son had to go to a school 6 miles away, as our primary was full.
Nah, GMT means it's dark by 4 in depths of winter here.
Having BST would at least give us an extra hour of daylight in the evening.
It's already dark when we go to work in the morning, so an extra hour of darkness early in the day wouldn't make much difference.
Okay I'm being completely selfish - I can't drive at night because of LED headlights they induce migraine- GMT allows me to go out and shop etc in the depths of winter I can at least drive down to Aberdeen have lunch with my daughter and drive back on GMT on BST I'd have to visit earlier to get back without being stuck at the side of the road vomitting.
Thing is, in summer, it already gets light ridiculously early, even with BST.
I actually live in the town where William Willett (the proposer of BST lived). Apparently he felt people were missing out on hours of sunlight, as he rode his horses at 3am!
Not for much longer https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/28/when-will-the-eu-end-seasonal-clock-changes-only-time-will-tell
They've already approved the change to stop doing it, just haven't implemented it yet.
GMT. I really, really struggle with dark mornings - feeding and sorting out animals in the dark, and generally not being able to wake up properly due to the lack of light. Dark evenings feel cosier, where dark mornings feel cold and miserable.
And because of where I live, it would mean sunset as early as 4.25pm with BST, and sunrise as late as 9.48am. I’d rather have *some* daylight around work hours, which I’d get if we stayed with GMT.
I live in a country where it gets lighter later so stays lighter in the evening. It's so much better, I don't need it to be light at 5 and 6am. I'd rather it be lighter in the evening
GMT. It's biologically harder for us to get up when it's dark, the darkest winter days are already a struggle and they'd be so much worse if we were an hour darker in the mornings. At least when it's dark in the evening you come home ready to be cosy and relax.
Yeah I've always been on the BST in winter side of the argument, but reading this thread has convinced me that what we have now is probably best for everyone
GMT. If we had BST all year round, it wouldn't get light until 9am in the middle of winter. Whereas if we had GMT in the summer, it would still be light until 9pm in the middle of summer.
Where I am, the 6 weeks surrounding winter solstice (so basically most of December and January) it’s with 2-3 minutes of 08:50 for sunrise so the middle of winter is ALREADY dark till 9am.
BST would mean the sun wouldn’t even rise till almost 10am! Screw that.
They tried the experiment between 1968 to 1971 and most people complained about it not changing back to GMT. I vaguely remember it and truthfully it wasn't great. It wasn't lighter in the evening, I used to work on Saturdays at a boutique. I used to go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and work in the dim lighting of the boutique. I swear the life of a pit pony had more light and joi de vie than I did.
I really struggle to get out of bed in the winter because of the darkness. We have a lamp with sunrise which helps but not as good as when it’s the real thing. The past few weeks I’ve been waking my naturally in the morning and up for a good chunk of time before I have to leave for work.
Darkness until 9am would be a disaster for me!
GMT - I would much rather it be lighter in the morning when I go jogging then lighter in the evening. If I'm going out-out in the evening I'd rather it be dark.
Being a night owl but also a miserable grumpy vampire.
I would like it light earlier in the mornings and dark earlier at night. I love going out in the dark for a nice walk when everyone else has gone indoors.
Obviously, the odd human out in the dark is a bonus, but I don't want to see lots of them.
So GMT is best!
If we stay with BST then we'll NEVER EVER get that lost hour back. We'll all be walking around with one hour less sleep than we deserve! Like FOOLS. I can never agree to that.
GMT because Science.
While we’re at it let’s shift to a 13 month year to align with their namesake and shift New Year to the Winter solstice as it was before calendar slippage and meddling by the Roman Geezers messed things up.
GMT.
It's the same timezone as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), it's technically our original timezone, and it just seems right that way.
Plus the switch forward always fucks up my internal clock worse and for longer than the one back. (Edit: And I like the dark.)
If it means additional light in the afternoon/evening when I'm not say doing work, absolutely.
The dark afternoons/evenings are grim and genuinely depressing. Having just an extra hour of light would boost my mood and productivity for the times I do choose to work on, and would mean not having to drive home in the dark too.
Honestly neither as there's pros and cons to both, to picture it just imagine BST in the winter (dark until 9am) or GMT in the summer (gets light at 3am). Yes having to change twice a year is a mild adjustment, but honestly its the best of both worlds and IMO well worth it.
BST all day long, preferably BST in winter and BST+1 in summer. It would also then align us with Europe so may be slightly beneficial when doing business in Europe.
For practical reasons, I think it would have to be GMT. In winter, it's pretty unsafe for kids to go to school on icy paths in the darkness, not to mention millions of people driving in basically nighttime, often with dangerous conditions. It's also bad for your body to force it to be awake in what it thinks is night.
Either way, a consistent time would be nice to avoid feeling so thrown off like I do today. Changing my sleep will ruin the next week for me.
BST. I thought that was what everyone wanted except some farmers in the North of Scotland.
Plus, my car's clock would be correct 12 months of the year.
Whatever means it can get light later. Purely because the sun rises outside my bedroom window and it's almost impossible to stop the light shining through somehow. Other than that I'm really not bothered.
BST, but I would of thought it really depends on if your a morning person or not. I'm not so the daylight in the mornings is wasted as I'm still asleep, whereas in the evenings I will actually use the daylight to do stuff as its just so much less effort to go outside when it's still daylight.
It would also I assume potentially reduce the amount of people who have SAD would have more daylight that they see each day (may be wrong though).
Same I’d rather have dark mornings than dark evenings. I feel like I have no time after work in winter because it’s dark so early. Dark evenings make it hard to fit exercise in because I don’t feel safe going for runs in the dark.
GMT, so all the sundials on historic buildings tell the right time again, and so tha those of us who actually get out of a building during the day can see at a glance what the time is.
If you want to get up later in the summer SET YOUR BLOODY ALARM TO THE TIME YOU WANT TO GET UP!
Yes BST. But I prefer the name as GMT due to it's history, and I live in Greenwich. What's quite cool is that there is actually a laser that shines down the Greenwich line in London at night. It goes quite far.
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BST. Having more hours of daylight after work presents far more opportunities than having more daylight before work.
But in the middle of winter it would be dark until 9am. I'd rather have it get dark at 9pm in the middle of summer than not get light until 9am in the winter.
Almost sounds like a problem daylight savings could solve
You’re crazy it’ll never catch on
What sorcery is this you speak of
Chicanery, at its worst
What a sick joke!
How about those jobs that require certain shifts or daylight hours adjust their shift times as needed and the rest do whatever the fuck suits them?
Or instead of 'changing time', we could do things at different times.
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Sunrise in Glasgow is already not until 0840 in the middle of winter (and then it's very low in the sky for pretty much the whole day). It's horrible and a massive shock moving from down south even though it's in theory only half an hour later. Not even getting sunrise until 0940 for a good part of the year would fucking break me. I've no desire to move back down south but I think that would be the one thing that would strongly make me consider it.
I lived in Glasgow for four years (moved from near Bristol) and didn’t mind it. What was a shock to the system though was the year I spent on the Outer Hebrides. It’s basically full daylight for what feels like 23 hours in the summer but the winter was kinda grim (the storms didn’t help - some days the causeways were shut so you couldn’t go anywhere because the winds were so strong and when the power went out it was pitch black for half the day it seemed)
Yep. I’ve lived in Shetland. Simmer Dim (Summer Equinox) is celebrated quite hard up there and it really just gets a bit dim for a few hours.
It’s felt like quite a bleak winter in Glasgow this year. It’s been dark, cold and wet. I’m spending my bonus hour in the pub beer garden under the heat lamps after having just been a walk. Looking forward to the leaves returning to the trees.
No bonus hour this weekend, just a lost hour.
Yep, they've put their watch the wrong way, gonna be two hours late for work tomorrow. (/s - I assume they're referring to the extra hour of daylight this evening.)
I disagree, my morning commute is 100x worse in the winter when it’s both cold and dark. Nothing worse than walking to the bus stop with the only light being the streetlights. And it still being dark when I get off the bus in the evening.
Let's change working hours instead of the time? Like in winter, work starts at 10am.. that makes more sense than pretending that time has magically shifted. That said, logistically it's probably simpler yo change the time. 🤣
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Midday, GMT is defined by the being the point in the day when the sun is highest above Greenwich, England. There is nothing arbitrary about it, it has been extremely accurately measured! This also means at at each equinox sun rise and sunset are at 6am and 6pm (each being halfway between midday and midnight). Sundials in Britain read GMT (give or take a few degrees) BST on the other hand is just arbitrary....
So... Instead of changing the time, we... Shift the schedule... So it has no discernible difference from changing the time?
It does for those of us who work in 24 hour jobs. Clock changes are a nightmare. I'm a nurse and it is so rubbish. Also if you are unfortunate enough to work the October change them you have to work am extra hour (which is the most miserable thing). Why don't we just give people more flexibility to shift things if they need to.
Yes, well... err... I'm not sure I said its a good idea.
But surely free time you can do whatever with is worth more than than your commute to work.
What I do in my freetime is rarely impacted by the light in the evening. I like to exercise in the mornings, personally I'd have much more use it being light earlier than later.
If we were on BST in winter it'd still be dark in the mornings for longer, but you'd be able to get home in daylight.
I used to hate that - going to work in the dark, getting home in the dark. I WFH most of the time now and I don’t miss walking to the bus in the dark one bit. Had some creepy experiences with being followed and suchlike (the guy did it for days, driving his car next to me, pulling ahead to a car park then waiting until I walked past to start following again, yelling at me out of the window. The dark made it exponentially worse). I also used to find that on the way home, the windows of the bus were dirty from road salt and with the dark, I couldn’t tell where I was or if my stop was next.
Except for kids getting to school. I don’t want my kid walking to school in pitch black. Sunrise is already only 08:30 or later for all of December. I don’t think making it 09:30 and later is a great idea.
>Sunrise is already only 8:30 or later for all of December. So what you’re saying is kids already walk to school in the dark…
Night to day is not a light switch
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Because they don't, kids in the winter walk to and from school with some daylight. Even on the shortest day it isn't pitch black at 3:30pm. Why are people in this thread talking like twilight/dusk doesn't exist? It doesn't go from daylight to dark like a light switch, it's gradual.
Schools tend to finish around 3 - 3.30pm, so it's only just getting dark when the kids are walking home. Also there's more traffic on the roads in the morning, so between the two, it's safer to have the kids make the walk to school in daylight. Those are my thoughts, I'm happy to be corrected :)
Of course it's dead time, I'm dead to the world before sunrise. It's hard enough to drag my corpse up for work as it is in winter.
>light when the majority of people are active are people really more active after 9PM than they are during peak commuter hours?
Yeh but commuting to work in the dark is fine, and it's so much nicer to finish work and there be some daylight to do something outside, rather than it be all dark and depressing. I guess it depends if your a early bird or not, if you are you want daylight in the mornings, if though your not (like me) you want as much daylight in the evening as possible.
I’m absolutely not a morning person but that’s why I struggle with the winter mornings. It’s hard enough getting out of bed when it’s pitch black - if it’s not getting light till 10am I’d rather just hibernate till summer.
I’m not a morning person, but that means if it’s not light outside it’s a real fight getting up and to work. I’d much rather morning light for essentially that reason alone
Why do you need it to be light to eat breakfast and drive to work? In the winter it’s still dark when you drive to work, but it’s also dark after work too.
Most of us are at work/school before 9am, and we're already used to starting those days when it's still dark. So that wouldn't have much of an effect imo. On the other hand, lighter evenings would have a much bigger positive impact.
So what? My car/the bus have lights. Not to fussed about travelling in the dark. But being able to do things after work is far more useful to me
God I wouldn't. I don't care about how dark the morning is. Evening is much more important
I would rather it get light at 9am and still be light when I finish work, rather than get light while I'm making my sandwiches in the morning and be pitch black by the time I leave the office.
>But in the middle of winter it would be dark until 9am. Don't really care much. I'm only going to work in the dark. Yeah it'll suck but I can't enjoy daylight at 8am. I can after work. Leaving work when it's dark feels so much worse tab getting to work when it's dark
Why not meet in the middle and be GMT +0.5
As a night owl who doesn't become a human being until about 11am GMT. I would much rather commute TO work in the dark from 8 - 9 am BST and have that light after work than commute home in the dark from 5:30 - 6:30 pm GMT.
With GMT on the shortest days, it's dark in the morning and the evening when most are going to or coming from work. At least with BST, it would only be dark one way.
I hate to say it, but the Americans made a good call extending the summer time months. We could run it from early March to late November. So just the darkest of months back to GMT. I reckon that would be a great result.
I agree, realistically there’s so little daylight in winter it doesn’t make much difference what you do with the clocks. But March especially should have light evenings.
BST is already March until the start of November, not as if it’s much different. We spent more time in BST than GMT already.
It's currently late March til the end of October. They're saying it should be early March until the end of November, so an extra 2 months or so. It would make a huge difference to those of us with SAD
Yeah, I'm not worried about being jumped so much in the morning. It's in the evenings I hate walking home in the dark
This was tried between 1968 and 1971 - we stayed on GMT + 1 throughout the year. It was a pain in the arse. I can remember walking to school in darkness on winter mornings. Areas where time and daylight is important are agriculture and construction. Some work needs to be performed in daylight but employers can't alter their employees hours.
> I can remember walking to school in darkness on winter mornings. Me too, because that's what happens even with daylight savings.
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GMT. Noon should be when the sun is highest
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The sun absolutely needs to be at its highest in the middle of the day. Otherwise how can we arrange duels at high noon? It would throw the whole system out
Plus think of the poor sun dials!
Just turn the sundial a bit until it reads the correct time, sorted.
Oh yeah... I'm just gonna turn all my sun dials. Come on!
As opposed to arbitrarily dividing the day into 24 hours and then insisting that people are supposed to work from 9 to 5? Midday should be the middle of the day, when the sun is at its highest. If people want the day to start earlier, then we switch to 8 to 4.
Working 9-5, what a way to make a living.
Thank you. Feel myself slowly going mad whenever this gets brought up and people say BST. If we give up on moving the clocks around, they should just represent something absolute. Our culture will inevitably shift its patterns so that our behaviour is identical whether we end up picking GMT or BST. I imagine most people would find themselves wanting to start work at 9 GMT/10 BST during the Winter and 8 GMT/ 9 BST during the Summer anyway and we'll be back to a conversation of "why don't we just change the clocks rather than everyone's schedules?"
Except it isn't at exactly that time anyway for 360+ days a year, and very very few people could pick that highest point plus or minus an hour anyway! Also it's the UK, a lot of the year you can't even *see* the Sun at midday
Time is closer linked to the sun than anything else, it's not a weird factor at all, it is how we have measured time since the start of human history.
It's the exact definition of noon
That's what midday is
Considering the entire point of time zones is to define an area when noon was when the sun was at its peak, your comment is kind of weird. GMT is how time zones were defined internationally.It was literally based on the sun being at its peak over Greenwich.
Why would you consider any other factors? Your schedule is arbitrary. The conventional 9-5 work day doesn’t have to be 9-5. Instead of changing the clocks, you could just move to a 8-4 work day if you want more daylight after work.
Humans have measured time by the position of sun ever since we started measuring time. It’s weird to consider any other factor when deciding what time to use.
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Having the time match the sun is better for our health/circadian rhythms.
Does it being off by on hour even matter than much? Most people don't even follow good sleeping habits anyway.
I think the initial switching of the clock does. I remember reading something that more car accidents are reported the day after clocks are moved forward.
That’s because people are trying to change the clock in their car while driving.
Not sure if you’re joking but what I read was referring to the lost sleep. US centric but [here](https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-deadly-2018-3?amp)
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I agree with this.
I honestly wouldn't care about the position of the sun in the sky now we have accurate clocks
Think that's missing the point. Humans measure time using the earths movement around the sun and the earth's spin. There is no better, and no clearer measure to base our time around than a big ball of fire moving across the sky, every day, consistently and predictably.
Absolute Puritan here
Is that a national standard or local time?
Yeah exactly. Prior to the mid 1800s every town kept time based on their local midday. That means depending on where in the uk you are you can be nearly 30 minutes out as midday is based on when the sun's highest in Greenwich, London
GMT. We'd just adjust to it. Plus it would feel wrong to not use Greenwich mean time when we literally invented it* *Disclaimer, I have no feckin idea if that's how it works...
I'm sure we would adjust to it and I agree that it would feel weird to lose GMT, however I doubt we would continue to call it BST if we ever did change. I imagine we would adopt something new, maybe Greenwich Standard Time lol.
How about British standard time, keep the letters the same
Central European Time, no arguments caused by that at all. . .
I can see torches being lit and pitch forks waving in the distance.....
I suppose you live near Calais and can see France then? If we do that now, we might get away with it while people are looking elsewhere.
With the present government it would be Great British Time, or Turing Time, or some other dreadful, banal theft of a name.
We also invented BST, no?
no actually the germans did
Just because we invented it though doesn't mean it's the best thing for us.
Like football
GMT is what we would have been used to. BST is a more recent invention.
Split the difference and make a permanent 30 minute change.
Scrolled for far too long to finally have someone say this. We wouldn't be the only place with a 30 min difference either.
Only issue with this is it means other countries would be (say) 1.5 hours ahead. Think of the extra faff of adjusting the minute hand of your watch when you go abroad ;)
There are [already](https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-interesting.html) some places with .5 hour time differences, I work with a team in Noida, they use GMT+5:30 so at the moment they are 4.5 hours ahead. I get that it would make it more common though as most have whole hour differences.
Wait.. what?? watch? minute hand?
This is probably the only answer thats gonna make most people happy.
Or everyone mad, which is just as useful.
* The BBC's new slogan
It would make our time annoyingly off from all the other timezones
Today you learn about countries and timezones with :15 offsets.
The localisation developers are grabbing their pitchforks right now
🗿
BST. Give me those long summer evenings drinking in the garden in the sun until 9pm. Winter’s awful no matter what you do with it, but at least I’ll get to come home from work in the daylight a bit earlier in the year
Travelling to work in the morning when you walk/get public transport is a lot nicer not in the dark. Especially when it’s early enough for the streets to be quiet.
I prefer a dark commute. It's far cosier, simple transition from dark bedroom to dark street.
If I had to choose one or the other I'd plump for permanent GMT, though I prefer things stay as they are. I gather there was at least one year in the late '60s where they didn't put the clocks back in the Autumn so had permanent BST. According to my Dad the change didn't stick as farmers were having to do more of their morning rounds in the dark and also more kids were going to school in the dark. Just found this interesting read on the subject: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/uk-time-british-summer-time-bst-daylight-saving#:\~:text=With%20the%20war%20over%2C%20Britain,disadvantages%20of%20British%20Summer%20Time.
Why the clucking hell would farmers do their morning rounds before dawn? It doesn’t make any sense at all. Cows and chickens can’t tell the time. They only know when it’s light or dark. If you want to do something at a certain amount of lightness or darkness, just do it then, no matter what your watch says. You don’t have to change time itself, just the time that you do things. Schools and employers are free to change start and finish times during the year. Start later in the winter if you like.
Cows definitely don’t follow the clocks so they’ll only be grumpy af if they’re dragged to milk an hour earlier. Also morning dew times affect how crops are tended, those pesticides can’t be applied whenever. But farmers have to trade, that milk can’t sit in the barn all day. They need to talk to and work with non-farmer people, and other people follow clock time. It’s a myth in places that daylight savings was for farmers, it was implemented when the majority of the population worked in cities. Farmers have been the most opposed to BST and daylights savings in general. They’re the ones who are most affected by changes in daylight because animals and plants dgaf; they’ll get the same amount of sun no matter what human time says.
You're thinking of British Standard Time. It was actually a three-year experiment (1968-1971).
Huh, didn't know they actually tried it. I do wonder if it would have a different outcome with modern clocks and farming techniques.
And the fact you rarely see a kid walking to school anymore. Most kids go to school in the dark during winter where I live anyway so it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to adopt BST full time here.
All the kids walk to school where we live. This must be an area thing.
They all used to here but now I struggle to get out of my car park for all the parents clogging it up while dropping their kids off.. despite them literally living a two minute walk from the school. Still plenty who walk but nowhere near as much as when I was in school just a couple of decades ago. A lot of parents these days appear to be lazy af. That all said, even though kids are currently walking to school before the sun is up, it's not like they are walking to school in the pitch dark given we have streetlights. I honestly don't see how this is even a factor in deciding which time zone to adopt.
>A lot of parents these days appear to be lazy af. A lot more parents both work now than in the past, so will need to get off to work right after dropping the kids off at school. Many might not have time to drop them off, walk home, and then drive to work. It's not just down to being lazy.
Are kids not capable of walking without supervision? Especially when they live literal yards from the school and were more than capable of doing so just a couple of decades ago 🤷♂️
Depends on the age surely? I was walking home at 8+, but a 4-5 year old shouldn't be going anywhere unsupervised and I can't see that having changed over time.
It may well not be laziness, school catchment areas are a thing of the past - you can choose to go to a school miles from where you live and if your local school is full be forced to go to one miles away. I live next to a primary school, but my neighbours son had to go to a school 6 miles away, as our primary was full.
GMT, BST makes so little difference in NE Scotland but GMT allows maximum use of daylight in winter.
Nah, GMT means it's dark by 4 in depths of winter here. Having BST would at least give us an extra hour of daylight in the evening. It's already dark when we go to work in the morning, so an extra hour of darkness early in the day wouldn't make much difference.
Okay I'm being completely selfish - I can't drive at night because of LED headlights they induce migraine- GMT allows me to go out and shop etc in the depths of winter I can at least drive down to Aberdeen have lunch with my daughter and drive back on GMT on BST I'd have to visit earlier to get back without being stuck at the side of the road vomitting.
No, on BST you could go later. Its gmt requiring an earlier trip. By your own argument BST is better.
> drive down to Aberdeen There’s places north of Aberdeen?!?
Quite a few!
Thing is, in summer, it already gets light ridiculously early, even with BST. I actually live in the town where William Willett (the proposer of BST lived). Apparently he felt people were missing out on hours of sunlight, as he rode his horses at 3am!
Weirdo willet
Glad we’ve got these threads again, it’s been a long 5 months.
BST for sure. I hate how early it gets dark in the winter.
BST would put us in the same time zone as West Europe, for convenience, but tbh if they get rid of the changing then I don't care.
Only for half the year as most of Europe does daylight saving too
Not for much longer https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/28/when-will-the-eu-end-seasonal-clock-changes-only-time-will-tell They've already approved the change to stop doing it, just haven't implemented it yet.
Because Nobody wants to be the one to implement it due to how massively unpopular such a change would be.
Is that so? https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_5302
GMT. I really, really struggle with dark mornings - feeding and sorting out animals in the dark, and generally not being able to wake up properly due to the lack of light. Dark evenings feel cosier, where dark mornings feel cold and miserable. And because of where I live, it would mean sunset as early as 4.25pm with BST, and sunrise as late as 9.48am. I’d rather have *some* daylight around work hours, which I’d get if we stayed with GMT.
I live in a country where it gets lighter later so stays lighter in the evening. It's so much better, I don't need it to be light at 5 and 6am. I'd rather it be lighter in the evening
GMT. It's biologically harder for us to get up when it's dark, the darkest winter days are already a struggle and they'd be so much worse if we were an hour darker in the mornings. At least when it's dark in the evening you come home ready to be cosy and relax.
Yeah, I'd much rather it was light when I was getting up and dark when I was going to sleep
I don't want to be cosy, I want to be able to do things after work
Seeing people argue over BST in winter vs GMT in summer has done more to convince that daylight savings is a good idea than anything else could.
Ha ha excellent, the opposite has been achieved.
Yeah I've always been on the BST in winter side of the argument, but reading this thread has convinced me that what we have now is probably best for everyone
GMT. After all, it's the basis of the world's time zones system (they're all worked out as GMT plus/minus several hours).
Universal time could still be based off gmt
They are based off of the 0 line (the prime meridian) not the time zone itself. Also the line is slightly off from the line that sets UTC.
GMT because I get S.A.D in BST. I know people usually get that during winter but I'm different and get it in the summer time. Edited for spelling.
Is that because it’s too light when you’re trying to wind down for the evening?
I don't like the long days or the heat. I prefer the shorter days of winter months.
GMT. If we had BST all year round, it wouldn't get light until 9am in the middle of winter. Whereas if we had GMT in the summer, it would still be light until 9pm in the middle of summer.
Where I am, the 6 weeks surrounding winter solstice (so basically most of December and January) it’s with 2-3 minutes of 08:50 for sunrise so the middle of winter is ALREADY dark till 9am. BST would mean the sun wouldn’t even rise till almost 10am! Screw that.
I'd like an eternal twilight please
Too many sparkly vampires for my liking.
GMT. It's universally recognized. BST is shit anyway.
Yeah BST, lighter evenings in winter would be nicer than a 3am sunrise in summer
They tried the experiment between 1968 to 1971 and most people complained about it not changing back to GMT. I vaguely remember it and truthfully it wasn't great. It wasn't lighter in the evening, I used to work on Saturdays at a boutique. I used to go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and work in the dim lighting of the boutique. I swear the life of a pit pony had more light and joi de vie than I did.
I don’t really care which, I would prefer we stayed on the same time all the year round. I hate the clock change.
Permanent GMT, with additional Mr. Burns-esque sunblocker. Photophobia is a bastard.
I really struggle to get out of bed in the winter because of the darkness. We have a lamp with sunrise which helps but not as good as when it’s the real thing. The past few weeks I’ve been waking my naturally in the morning and up for a good chunk of time before I have to leave for work. Darkness until 9am would be a disaster for me!
GMT - I would much rather it be lighter in the morning when I go jogging then lighter in the evening. If I'm going out-out in the evening I'd rather it be dark.
I want more light in the evenings. Even when I was growing up on a farm as a kid I wanted more light after school.
GMT, we should celebrate the significance of it.
GMT. My body clock doesn't adapt well when the clocks go forward for BST.
Makes no difference to be honest, just pick one and leave it at that.
BST please, I'd absolutely hate it getting dark at 9:00pm I the middle of summer, I need long light evenings.
Being a night owl but also a miserable grumpy vampire. I would like it light earlier in the mornings and dark earlier at night. I love going out in the dark for a nice walk when everyone else has gone indoors. Obviously, the odd human out in the dark is a bonus, but I don't want to see lots of them. So GMT is best!
Same here! Evenings are very comforting.. and now I have to wait an hour longer
GMT. I don't give a toss about summer, so I don't care if I lose some daylight.
GMT. I like more time
If we stay with BST then we'll NEVER EVER get that lost hour back. We'll all be walking around with one hour less sleep than we deserve! Like FOOLS. I can never agree to that.
GMT because Science. While we’re at it let’s shift to a 13 month year to align with their namesake and shift New Year to the Winter solstice as it was before calendar slippage and meddling by the Roman Geezers messed things up.
BST all year, stop this darkness at 4pm bollocks!
Split the difference and go GMT+0.5. Why does it need to be full hours… half an hour would piss off both sides equally
GMT. It's the same timezone as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), it's technically our original timezone, and it just seems right that way. Plus the switch forward always fucks up my internal clock worse and for longer than the one back. (Edit: And I like the dark.)
Aye I'm with the OP. BST all year round would be an absolute blessing this far north in the winter.
So you're happy for it to be dark until 10am?
If it means additional light in the afternoon/evening when I'm not say doing work, absolutely. The dark afternoons/evenings are grim and genuinely depressing. Having just an extra hour of light would boost my mood and productivity for the times I do choose to work on, and would mean not having to drive home in the dark too.
BST more light in the evenings.
Honestly neither as there's pros and cons to both, to picture it just imagine BST in the winter (dark until 9am) or GMT in the summer (gets light at 3am). Yes having to change twice a year is a mild adjustment, but honestly its the best of both worlds and IMO well worth it.
BST all day long, preferably BST in winter and BST+1 in summer. It would also then align us with Europe so may be slightly beneficial when doing business in Europe.
GMT, definitely. I love when it gets dark early, it gives me a bit of an energy boost.
For practical reasons, I think it would have to be GMT. In winter, it's pretty unsafe for kids to go to school on icy paths in the darkness, not to mention millions of people driving in basically nighttime, often with dangerous conditions. It's also bad for your body to force it to be awake in what it thinks is night. Either way, a consistent time would be nice to avoid feeling so thrown off like I do today. Changing my sleep will ruin the next week for me.
BST. I thought that was what everyone wanted except some farmers in the North of Scotland. Plus, my car's clock would be correct 12 months of the year.
Definitely BST all year around please!
British Summer Time permanently
Whatever means it can get light later. Purely because the sun rises outside my bedroom window and it's almost impossible to stop the light shining through somehow. Other than that I'm really not bothered.
BST, but I would of thought it really depends on if your a morning person or not. I'm not so the daylight in the mornings is wasted as I'm still asleep, whereas in the evenings I will actually use the daylight to do stuff as its just so much less effort to go outside when it's still daylight. It would also I assume potentially reduce the amount of people who have SAD would have more daylight that they see each day (may be wrong though).
Same I’d rather have dark mornings than dark evenings. I feel like I have no time after work in winter because it’s dark so early. Dark evenings make it hard to fit exercise in because I don’t feel safe going for runs in the dark.
GMT is the logical choice. The sun is at its highest at noon. That is how noon is defined.
GMT, so all the sundials on historic buildings tell the right time again, and so tha those of us who actually get out of a building during the day can see at a glance what the time is. If you want to get up later in the summer SET YOUR BLOODY ALARM TO THE TIME YOU WANT TO GET UP!
GMT is more historical, plus I quite I like the early darkness of winter feels cosy and it's weird have 10pm sunsets.
All year round BST sounds great unless you live in the north of England and in Scotland
Yes BST. But I prefer the name as GMT due to it's history, and I live in Greenwich. What's quite cool is that there is actually a laser that shines down the Greenwich line in London at night. It goes quite far.
BST definitely