Clocks get changed this weekend.

[Bromptonaut]

Another reason to quietly hope that the Scots vote for independance in a few months time. Then we won't have their farmers telling us we can't put our clocks forward.

It's not just the Scots.

January sunrise in Ipswich on CET would be 09:04, around 09:30 in Manchester, later still in Belfast. In Central Europe, say Vienna, it would be 07:45 with clock and solar noon co-incident, close to what we see on GMT.

The fact is that the west of mainland Europe (eg Paris/Amsterdam) is the limit of practicality for CET - most of France though is east of the prime meridian which tracks through Le Havre and west of Limoges but east of Bordeaux . Add in effects of our northerly location on day length and fact that pretty well all of UK is west of Greenwich meridian and being on CET in winter makes little sense outside the South East.

 

[Cyclopathic]

People should be able to just have whatever time they want and not bother with all these stupid rules.

 

[DaveReading]

GMT... called that for a reason.

But only by us - to the rest of the world, it's UTC (more politically correct, can't have the world thinking that we invented it).

 

[Archie_tect]

But only by us - to the rest of the world, it's UTC (more politically correct, can't have the world thinking that we invented it).

People can call it what they like... 0.00.00 still runs through Greenwich and always will unless some idiot suggests the line is shifted... I blame the French.

 

[swansonj]

They do still use their own meridian. The blue 1:25,000 IGN maps have longitude in degrees from Greenwich and in Gradians from Paris.

Can I just pause to say that I regard having learnt that new fact as a positive enhancement to my life experience, which has made the rest of today worthwhile after all.

 

[DaveReading]

Gradians from Paris.

Gosh, I'd forgotten about those.

Having failed miserably to persuade the world that the Prime Meridian should go through Paris and not London, this was France's equally unsuccessful attempt to invent a sort of metric version of degrees (100 of them in a right angle).

 

[swansonj]

I am going to feel so bad if I have got this one wrong.

Fret not - I have just run downstairs to check one of mine, and am now out of breath having run back upstairs to tell you that yes, it does have gradians, and the numbers are about right for being centred on Paris. My joy is complete.

 

[Archie_tect]

They do still use their own meridian. The blue 1:25,000 IGN maps have longitude in degrees from Greenwich and in Gradians from Paris.

Well I like them...