Cameron is a Scottish name, and yet this particular Empty Forehead of Doom seems to want to do to Scotland what the Brown Gorgon did to England.
Well, why not? He only stands to lose about five votes anyway although Little Nick might lose a lot more. There is nothing he can do to Scotland that will affect his chances at the next election, just as the Brown Gorgon could kick the South of England in the teeth with no worries.
It's all about this clock-changing malarkey we have to go through twice a year. The Cleggeroid Coagulation want to put a stop to it. Well, it is a bit of a pain, especially with these new digital clocks. Moving forward an hour is easy but you can't move them back an hour. You have to move them forward twenty-three hours. If you miss it you have to go round again.
The thing is, he wants to keep them permanently one hour ahead of GMT to please (pause for deep breath) the French.
We have, in GMT, perfectly good Proper British Time and we don't want any of that greasy, garlic-laden French time over here thank you very much. If he's going to do away with all the clock-changing (I have a lot of clocks so I'd support stopping the changing. Everything comes with a clock on it these days) why not stick with GMT? Does this summer time thing have any advantage other than an extra hour in bed at the end of October? I mean, if it's time to get up and it's dark, turn a bloody light on. It's only one switch. Anyone can do it. Then go back to bed for half an hour while the EU-approved DimBulb warms up.
I wonder if the Green MP has thought of the extra energy burning in Scotland on those dark winter mornings? With any luck, trying to reconcile that with EU subservience will blow a gasket in her head and let some sense in.
The Coagulation have opened a big can of worms with this little idea. If they agree to bring us into EU time, they annoy the Scots which will please a lot of English. But then they are pandering to the EU and especially the French which will annoy a lot of English. If they keep GMT they will annoy the EU which will please a lot of English but they'll be pandering to the Scots... and there is no way out now.
Well, there is one way but I'd be surprised if it has even occurred to him.
Declare that we will stop changing clocks and we will be using Proper British Time permanently. The Scots will make some mutterings about losing summer time even though in summer it barely gets dark up here and the EU and the French will mutter about him not being subservient enough. He'll have annoyed both at once and his voters will be delighted. He's not going to do that. He doesn't have the guts to stand up to the EU and the Scots don't vote for him so chances are, we'll be on French time soon.
Watch out for stripy jumpers and onion-laden bicycles soon after. We can't have those pavement cafes here though. It's rained every single day for the past six weeks or more. You couldn't keep your Disc Bleue alight, and your etchings would be all streaky.
Still, there are tons of snails about.
8 comments:
"With any luck, trying to reconcile that with EU subservience will blow a gasket in her head and let some sense in."
Or some more madness out.
Some nice comments left under the Telegraph article...
I can really see the problem
a) P!ss off the EU
b) P!ss off the Scots
So hard to choose.
And this...
Normally I would want to consider both sides of the argument. But then I rembered, "Anyone but Scotland". So s*d em. They will like dark mornings anyway, like a pig in the proverbial.
Divide and rule working wonders, as we can see. A weakened UK for total EU integration.
I wonder how long this comment will last before being deleted...
Replace the word "scots" in your comments with "jews" or "blacks" and see how it reads you bunch of racist arrogant bastards
I think it's desperate because I never really encountered this agro - just good-natured banter - in the 12 or 13 years I lived in England (1985-1997).
Ah, 1997. Is that a clue?
It didn't rain yesterday. Here had the best temperature and amount of sunshine anywhere in the UK. Bit dull today though. Mind you it's dry again. Two days on the trot. Can't believe it.
I don't know which it should be, but "GMT is proper British" is a silly reason for picking a timezone. Just like "imperial measures are British" is a silly reason not to go metric. Just like "to annoy the French".
I'd rather we didn't have clock changing -- there are a fixed number of hours of daylight in a day -- live with it. If they have to pick then I'd rather they picked whichever one makes the most amount of daylight line up with the most number of people's days. We change the clocks "for the farmers" at the moment? WTF? Why don't they just get up an hour earlier? How hard is it to set your alarm an hour different instead of making the entire country change their timezone?
Speaking personally (and I accept that is no justification), I would find BST all year more convenient. In the Winter I get dark on the way to work and dark on the way home and I do a standard 9-5 day. If we were running BST I'd get light in the morning, so I would get light 50% of the useful time instead of 0%.
Daylight is evenly distributed about noon (GMT). The (typical) working day is evenly distributed about 1300. Why not pick a timezone such that 1300 in the active timezone equals 1200 GMT?
"imperial measures are British" is a silly reason not to go metric.
Quite right. There are perfectly good reasons not to go metric without invoking that one.
Question: Is Cameron proposing permanent BST (which is what I thought) or is he proposing to carry on changing twice year, but with an hour's difference from now?
Subrosa - today was the first sunny day for weeks. guess where I was? In the lab. Typical.
Onus - every reason to change the time around is a silly reason. The sun rises and sets with no regard to what we call the hours.
I'd rather not have to change those clocks but for me, I don't care whether they are set to BST or GMT. I'm not fixed to the 9 to 5.
When I was, it was clear that in midwinter you went to work in the dark and came home in the dark. The sun was gone by 3:30. If it is instead gone by 4:30 then everyone still goes home in the dark. No real difference.
Which time the Cameroid chooses isn't important. The important part is how he does it without enraging one or other section of his voters (I'm not one of them). That's the part to watch.
@Leg-iron
What you say is true of course; but I did say I would rather they picked based on the largest number of daylight hours for the largest number of people. That doesn't suit people who don't work the average day, but then they aren't suited now either are they?
As to your argument about 15:30 and 16:30, I think you've cheated a bit. The sun doesn't suddenly change from 0300-2200 to 0930-1530; it's a gradual shortening and lengthening. Therefore there is some time we could pick (and I'm not saying I've worked out what it is) that would match the average centre of work day with the centre of daylight day. i.e. maximising usable daylight hours over the whole year (not just on the 21st December -- there's nothing that would help when daylight is from 1130-1230).
If that wasn't GMT or BST I personally wouldn't have a problem. Whatever time it is though, doesn't change during the year, so there is no point changing timezone -- there is no way to manufacture more daylight hours.
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