Time jerks

Remember that tonight the clocks go back – actually you’d better check that, as I find it difficult to work out from first principles which way the time-change goes (I know, I’m a bit thick).

But it’s definitely different tomorrow.

I think that changing the clocks twice a year is one of the clearest examples of how out of synchrony we are with nature. The Earth does not jerk forward (or backward) on its spinning elliptical passage around our sun twice a year. Everything is smooth in the natural world but we add our own jagged structure on top of the natural smoothness.

You don’t get an hour extra or less sleep when the clocks change – you just disconnect from reality by an artificial hour. Well done!

I’ve spent some recent time, fairly early in the morning, in the garden, seeing what nature has to offer. There have been some birds, including four new species for the garden year-list, two of which are garden lifers!

I think the clock change means that I’ll have a bit more time (or is it less?) to do this before watching Wales lose to South Africa than I will have this morning before I watch England lose to New Zealand.

It has been so mild that there have been insects, small flying insects, active soon after dawn. They are very valuable ecologically, of course, but very irritating when you are staring into the sky hoping to spot a Hawfinch flying over (no luck yet) because they catch your attention, and then disappoint. Insects – pah!

I’m glad that I don’t have a commute into and out of work any more – I used to loathe the time when the clocks changed in autumn because suddenly my drive home was absolutely certainly in the dark, and that was no fun at all up the A1.

Ralph Underhill will be back next week.

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16 Replies to “Time jerks”

  1. Mark, it’s “spring forward, fall back” – simples! Being similarly untroubled by having to get to work, I simply live by the light and so it makes no difference what the time is.

  2. Yes, briefly more light in the morning from tomorrow, probably wont need bike lights to go to work………but definitely a dark cycle-commute home if I am in the office beyond 4pm. Until the daylength shortens further. Apologies to those reading this in northern parts of Britain where the daylength is already significantly shorter and no doubt those who commute have a darker commute anyway.

    I get quite irritated by all the ‘extra hour in bed’ or ‘extra hour of light’ comments – it is merely shifting to end of work day from begining, assuming people work 9 to 5… not sure who decided that. And who benefits, when they spend all of it trapped in a slow-moving metal box.

  3. I really enjoy the clock change largely due to a degree of schadenfreuder over the way people get all bent out of shape because of it! I mostly get up when it gets light and only note the ‘time’ if I have to check a tide table or write something in my notebook. Apart from the urban-rural disparity I also experienced the north south split in the past which in many ways requires some real backbone to put up with some really short winter days. Coming from West wales it is also worth pointing out the difference between sunrise and sunset on opposite sides of the country; at times in the past working as a lighthouse keeper I had to switch from working in West Wales to going to the North Sea coast, the difference in clock time of sunrise was striking, especially in mid-summer. , On the Calf of Man we had the north-west/ south-east split, long summer evenings, late winter mornings. All part of life’s rich tapestry!!

  4. As an Englishman living in Wales , a very wet Wales today, with a partner on her way to New Zealand to visit her son, who is currently working there, a New Zealand win! No way an England v Wales Final please, with a damned good game and the best team winning, which despite past results has never been SA or NZ.
    As for time we should stick to summertime with no bloody ludicrous changes.

  5. Back to “natural” time tomorrow, with the Sun overhead at noon; rather than overhead at 1pm.

      1. yes it was Mark with England the better side all the way through the game. Just need a Wales win tomorrow to set up a great six nations type final. Plus I’ve never liked the way the Springboks play and they have shall we say a certain reputation. Lets hope tomorrows is as good a game as today.
        Small holding fields and half of garden awash with what looks like a torrent of milky tea, chicken and duck houses above the water just, not quite sure how I’ll get the ducks in tonight. Water level is just starting to decline, if the forecast is right it should stop raining soon and then the levels always decline to wet but manageable.

  6. Better stick to wildlife than trying your hand as a rugby pundit ENG 19 – 7 NZL, but I do agree with you on the moving of time but which do you stick with BST or GMT personally I prefer GMT.

  7. I think the EU have voted to scrap this nonsense from 2021. Brexit won’t have been sorted out by then going by current progress so hopefully we’ll end up with pemanent GMT forever. Knowing our government they’ll choose summer time instead though. Better light for shooting or something.

  8. We really ought to stay on GMT (winter time) all year around, it is just where we are on the planet. And it would be as punitive to Scotland, in particular the Northern Isles, as BST all year around would be. In the depths of winter, sometimes it wouldn’t get light until 9-10am here if we stopped putting the clocks back, and it is brutal to my mental health as it is.

  9. Apart from remembering to change the clocks on the appointed weekends I can’t say that it makes very much difference to me. In the old days there were a couple of occasions when I didn’t realise the clocks were changing and turned up at the wrong time for an appointment on the Sunday but nowadays with mobile phones and PCs automatically updating themselves you don’t need to remember.

    Enjoyed the rugby, which I wasn’t able to watch live so had to work hard to avoid any spoilers!

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