Just a few weeks ago, on 31st October 2010, at 01:59 and 59 seconds in the morning, millions of us in Britain, and many millions more throughout Europe, travelled back in time by one hour, and found ourselves in the same position in the same bed, but now – instantaneously – at exactly the same time we were one hour before. I wanted to say this took place at exactly 2 o’clock in the morning, but that’s the point: this particular 2 o’clock in the morning never arrives, it doesn’t exist; it’s lost in an alternative universe, and we have to wait another hour for another 2 o’clock, when the new time pretends it has caught up with the old.
This isn’t science fiction, it’s the twilight zone of moving from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time, when the clocks change each autumn. An event so ordinary and yet so mysterious that we hardly think about it. Or dream about it. I’ve never been awake when the clock actually changes – and I have one of those digital radio clocks by my bed, so in theory I would see it change before my eyes.
We can just change time. How staggering! Or is it just a great act of make-believe? Most of us are so disconnected from the natural rhythms of the world that we don’t notice whether this ‘conventional’ time fits in with ‘real’ time or not.
One of my obsessions when I was studying philosophy was the notion of ‘measure’, and how important it is that we have rival and non-standard units of measurement, to remind us that a unit is simply a convention, that there is no intrinsic truth to any one way of mapping the world, and that each form of measurement allows us to see the world in a particular way. Thank goodness that in Britain we still have both metres and yards, litres and pints, kilogrammes and pounds.
My only sadness, in the context of this post, is that we don’t have alternative ways of measuring time. Or do we? ‘Noon’, possibly, means ‘when the sun is at its height’, and not necessarily 12.00 – which no longer has any natural connection with the height of the sun. It’s a miracle that we haven’t got metric time – that we still stick to units of 24, 12, 60, etc. Although we have creeping metricisation (is that a word?) with the millisecond.
I started all these thoughts about the clocks because we are now one small step closer to tinkering with time even further, and keeping British Summer Time throughout the winter too. Which would mean darker mornings and brighter evenings in the winter.
What’s not to like? The Independent gives the arguments for:
Almost unheralded, the question of daylight saving is back on to the agenda – and a very good thing that is, too. A Private Member’s Bill, which passed its second reading [on 4 Dec], would require the Government to open an inquiry into the benefits of keeping British Summer Time throughout the year.
There is, of course, a nostalgia issue here. In some ways it would be a pity to lose Greenwich Mean Time, which has such resonance both in Britain and around the world. This, however, is a detail compared with the many advantages that would accrue from a switch to year-round BST. Road safety groups say that 100 road deaths could be prevented every year. There would be significant economies on energy consumption, as the daylight hours would match most people’s waking and working hours more closely than they do in winter at present. And organisations as diverse as the Football Association, green groups and tourist concerns are also in favour. An additional plus is psychological: it would eliminate the damper that early darkness puts on the national mood each autumn.
The Daily Mail gives the arguments against. And instead of calling it ‘Year Long British Summer Time’ it prefers ‘Berlin Time’.
Britain has been warned that switching to Berlin Time could have a damaging effect on health, education, energy consumption and commerce.
As MPs prepare to vote on the proposal this week, warning bells were sounded in Portugal, which went through a disastrous four-year experiment with Berlin Time in the Nineties.
The official line in Portugal was that moving the clocks forward by one hour would create jobs, reduce road deaths and encourage participation in sport. But the opposite proved to be the case and the government had to heed public opinion and return to GMT.
Opponents [to the British plan] point out that millions more people all over Britain would have to go to work and school in the dark.
London would be in semi-darkness at 9am on the shortest day of the year, December 21, and the sun would not appear in Carlisle on that day until 9.34am.
There is also concern that the longer summer evenings could lead to more outdoor drinking and anti-social behaviour. Sunset in Glasgow on the longest day of the year, June 21, would not take place until 11.06pm, while in Nottingham it would be at 10.34pm and in Dover it would be at 10.14pm.
The Portuguese found that changing to Berlin Time – officially known as Continental Time – led to poorer exam results as children could not get to sleep because of the lighter evenings and were therefore tired at school the following day.
There was also an increase in stress levels, insomnia and consumption of sleeping pills. More road accidents occurred during the darker winter mornings and energy bills rose because households used more electricity.
I’m for it. Longer evenings. That’s the clincher. What do you think?
Bridges and Tangents 
Did you know that quantum mechanics / cosmologists talk about the future being able to influence the present? Which makes me think of the famous quantum physicist
Niels Bohr who wrote: “If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet”. Not only is the universe, at least at a quantum level, utterly enigmatic, it is, of course, also, extraordinarly engineered, and MASSIVE / POWERFUL .., and beautiful (just look at our own small part of it with snowflakes, deserts, stars, camels, gold ..
And how The Creator – Our Creator – behind it all (as part of The Trinity) was, at one point, just a couple of cells in the womb of a young, humble (in terms of worldly position) woman, born in a stable/cave and placed in a manger. And then became a carpenter! Creator Carpenter. Can’t hardly begin to get my head around this supreme exampe of humility (and then, of course, the final humilation on a Cross -> supreme humility –> supreme love) – except to say: praise Christ, Jesus – and thank You.
Ed:
This is true, but again, as a true believer as I know you are, why not let the world be as it will? Follow the rhythms, the light, as it flows. Awake to the new day and do one’s work; rest with the close of day.
I am very much a night person and have seen the clocks change at 01.59 and 59 seconds for years. It is quite something to see a computer change automatically.
As a consequence, I would quite welcome lighter evenings and could learn to live with darker mornings qhwn going to work in the knowledge that we would have longer daylight to come.
Just had to mention – in East Africa, when someone said they would meet you at the 3rd hour, or the 6th hour, they meant respectively 9:00am and midday.
Not terribly philosophical, but it seemed a far more reasonable a way of measuring the day up – 6:00am being the 1st hour and 9:00pm being the 16th!!
I think that was the biblical way as well.
We had three years of British Summer Time back in the late sixties and I recall the dark winter mornings as somewhat grim.
Sundials have always held a certain amount of magic for me. I seem to remember their place being somewhat more significant in the millennium celebrations. And the moon is most special. 6.o o most definitely is the measure to the beginning of our real day but I just Love being out to watch dawn break and at dusk, they surely are the true measures of our day, and of course far less rigid than life tries to make us. I Love the time travellers wife, which is what I thought of when I first read your post. Life does seem to reveal itself in hind site and this has made me think about all the prophets and of how time really is unmeasurably a topsy turvy part of eternity. Cool post, thank you I Love the way you get us thinking!
Here in the USA we have Daylight Savings Time and Eastern Standard Time. I worked outdoors for many years and have been accustomed to rising in the dark, and caring for animals, etc. prior to daylight. It always seemed that work could be done prior to daylight, and when the morning rose, then the day began with whatever came next.
When I began working in an office, again I still had horses to care for in the morning and did that prior to going to “work”. However, I still like having some daylight hours in the evening when I come home.
I do not buy the argument that time needs to be changed in order to maintain a so called “safe” time for people or children in the morning when autumn falls. When the time changes, it takes a few weeks but after that, it is really daylight anyway by the time the children are waiting for the school bus in the morning.
But the real problem is at nightfall. Here in the east coast of USA it is dark now at 4:30 p.m. What can you do now after dark? Can children go outside at home to play now after dark?? Not really. Even though cold, if dressed warm the children could go out to play if it were light, but under no circumstances is my child going out after dark to play.
In addition, my child is still not adjusted to the time change, so her biological clock says to stay up after the “new” 8 p.m., but to rise at 6 a.m. rather than 7a.m. (the old 6 a.m.). So she is getting less sleep. The same for me.
What is the big deal, trying to manipulate the rhythms of the universe to suit our time schedule? Can people not adjust to the solar system? Amen.
Talking of the darkness and the cold … I Love this