to think it's too bloody dark too early and Scotland should have its own timezone if they want lighter mornings?

[MardyBra]

Just that really.

doesn't AMerica have different time zones WITHIN IT?

DONT SEE WHY Scotland CANT HAVE A DIFFERENT tz TO England (Blasted caps lock!!!!)
D
Um, because of the UK being in the same longitude, but the US being a whole lot wider?

The earth will tilt and the number of sunlit hours will decrease until Winter Solstice regardless how you match it up to the manmade clock. The longer afternoon was the man-made situation, these shorter afternoons is the 'real' time as measured by mid-day being with the sun at it's zenith.

I hate it, i count down the days til solstice +1 dayand telling myself by the time Christmas and New Years are done, the sunlight situation will already be improving.

Haha, it was me who said it Phaedra - can't think why some of us are convinced we're not BT with stuff like that - but it was actually tongue-in-cheek, for fuck's sake.

Rita you have a very inflated sense of your importance. I can't recall seeing anything by you recently.

Anyway
The independence movement lost the battle but we are winning the peace

It's flattering, the first post I make mentioning independence since the referendum and you were there.

Right, I seriously didn't understand It wasn't even to be Mentioned.
Even in a slightly sarky, tongue in cheek way
As you were, honest. I will get accused of trolling at this rate. let's talk sunlight, people...

Surely all we are doing is going back to GMT? we change the clocks in the Summer from the standard and then just return to it in Winter.

Personally I'm another who couldn't give a shit as by the time we get to December it still doesn't get light until nearly 9am and is getting dark by half 3....and that would be on a day where it was actually bright enough to know the difference - on a cloudy day it's dark all day anyway.

I'm in the North of England and tbh I do t mind dark nights but I hate dark mornings and they would be a hell of a lot worse if the clocks didn't change. Winter is Winter and that's it, unless you're the twerp of a scientist /medical person who last year was trying to convince us that if we stayed on BST, people would exercise more because it was lighter at night. BST struggles with warmth in July so I don't think lighter nights in December will stop rain sleet snow or bloody cold. Or maybe it's me!

Noelle I hope that was a joke about who cares for the Scottish kids because if it wasn't you sound nasty.

Yabu, I am in southern England and hate getting up in the dark more than dark evenings.

Isn't the solution a shorter working day in winter? and in summer too so we can enjoy the sunshine

Seriously though the roads are usually iciest in the mornings as they have had all night to freeze so isn't it more dangerous for people to travel to work in the dark?

Perhaps we could have another referendum to decide? And then the SNP could stamp their feet and their leader could resort to phoning into a radio show to express displeasure at the outcome

Personally, I couldn't give a toss - it's always dark up here in the winter. Do what you like with the time, there's only a certain amount of light and whether we have more of it at night or in the morning is immaterial. 2 time zones on a tiny island would be a disaster though - big fat no to that stupid idea.

Ach, sir C just said what I was going to, but better.

GMT is the correct time zone

For London, yes. Lands End is 5.7 degrees west, Peterhead is 1.7 degrees East. There's 30 minutes of difference in sunrise straight away (29 minutes 35.5 seconds, for pedants) even before you consider the effect of Scotland being substantially further north.

And if we're being super-pedantic, GMT (which is equivalent to UT1) is not maintained and there is no accurate source of it that is generally available. Everything, including the "Rugby" time signal (now actually broadcast from Cumbria), the "Greenwich" time signal on Radio 4, beep beep beep beep beep beeeeep, GPS, whatever, is actually UTC. There was a bill in parliament in 1996, which fell with the election of the Blair government and hasn't been looked at since, to change UK legal time (as defined by the Interpretation Act 1978) from GMT/UT1 to UTC. At the moment, the difference is less than a second, but this is going to become a real issue if (as seems quite likely) leap seconds cease to be inserted into UTC.

Oh feck off Phaedra, I only replied there due to someone else mentioning it.

But you know what, I can mention the referendum whenever I want and will continue to do so whenever I see fit.

Every time I see you posting on a thread I'll be sure to talk about it then.

'real' time as measured by mid-day being with the sun at its zenith.

The sun is only at the zenith at 1200.00 GMT over Greenwich four times per year (roughly 15 April, 13 June, 1 September, 25 December) because of the effect of the tilt of the earth and the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. The rest of the time it's up to a quarter of an hour early or late. Mean times are, er, mean: the sun is at its zenith on average at noon, not noon every day. The latter would require an untilted earth in a circular orbit.

Rather than changing the clocks, why don't we all just jump up and down in unison, and see if we can change the tilt of the Earth on it's axis a bit?

Yabu but to suggest Scotland and England should have different time zones.

I live in Northumberland, much of this large county is actually further north than southern Scotland. Where the hell would that leave us?

To everyone jumping on the Scottish versus English in the time zone debate please for the love of God look at a map. It's not as simple as people keep suggesting.

The whole premise of this thread was crap and anti Scottish. Pretty surprised at OP.

Don't think either Cameron or Milliband would be up for inflaming the Scots about that at the moment.

The whole premise of this thread was crap and anti Scottish.

How so? I thought Devo-Max was wildly popular? Here's some more Devo, to make it Max-er.

I live in Northumberland, much of this large county is actually further north than southern Scotland. Where the hell would that leave us?

Parts of Spain are west of Lands End; Cape Finisterre is 9W, placing it 24 degrees west of the centre of the timezone it is on. The sun rises there 95 minutes after it rises at the centre of the CET timezone, somewhere around Naples.

Roads can be horrendous on winter mornings and not so bad in evenings after they've had all day to melt, so it makes much more sense to have more daylight in the morning.

But, why bother changing it in the spring? They could just keep this time all year?

Duh ive seen your other controversial posts under your obvious name change. Why not man up and be stirry under your real name

This is not anti-scots at all. It is a fact that Scotland is a lot further north than England, and it would make sense to have two time zones, two countries or not. Then everyone would get better daylight distribution.

facts are never offensive.

It wouldn't make any sense at all for 2 time zones in such a small, united country.