Monday, September 29, 2008

Clock Changing

Daylight Savings kicks in this Sunday for those of us in Victoria, SA, Tassie and the ACT. It's a month earlier than normal for us Victorians.

I have three things to say.

1. I reckon it's too early. It's still a bit cold. The extra hour of sunlight after work doesn't really mean much because we're not likely to be sitting on our back patios with a mojito anyway.

2. Why is it plural? Shouldn't it be Daylight Saving? Because there's only one saving per day. Or are they suggesting because it's multiple days, it's more than one saving? No, I think it's just one saving. Further, it's not really saved at all because we lose an hour of it in the morning. It's not 'shifting' either because the rotation of the Earth is a constant (despite what the Adventists tell us). I think it should be called (in the singular) Clock Changing.

3. Queensland, who refuse to accept Clock Changing, need to man the fuck up. Seriously, it's the stupidity, not the heat. Queensland's stupid stupidity fucks us all up. It makes radio announcements take too long ("...and that can be heard at 7pm tonight on the ABC, 6pm in Queensland, 4pm in Perth etc etc") and in a work sense, it stuffs up phone call times and it just fucking shits me. Put your clocks forward like the rest of us you Bjelke-Petersen and Hanson-voting redneck cunts! And while you're at it, here... take Powderfinger back. We don't want them.

24 comments:

Kerces said...

Doesn't it also happen in NSW?

And maybe it's savingS because you're saving the daylight of 60 minutes each day?

Unknown said...

I always thought it was Daylight Saving time singular, not plural anyway.

No wonder people give me funny looks. They think I'm confused.

Anonymous said...

It is singular, actually.

Normally I don't give two hoots about for or against DST, but having school-aged children gives me an appreciation for not having to wait 3 hours after their rising to deliver them to school.

Also, DST was first inflicted upon a normally civilised world by early-rising health nut and golfer, William Willett. A pox on him, from all those who have liked to sleep in, and enjoy coming home from work to a cool evening breeze in summer, rather than a blazing afternoon summer sun.

Perseus said...

The article in The Age referred to it as 'savingS', more than once. It was probably written by one of those junior cadets that anger Ramon.

Perseus said...

The savingS article is here

wari lasi said...

Move to the tropics suckers.

The sun comes up at 6 ish and sets at 6 ish every day. More or less. And it sets like a blanket, you can stick twilight up your arse.

And on Southpark they just lost the internet. OMG! I have to watch.

Anonymous said...

Perseus, it's probably because some people shorten Daylight Saving Time (in which saving is an adjective) to Daylight Savings (in which saving is a noun), which sounds odd in singular.

patchouligirl said...

I disagree on point 1. I hate getting home in the dark and even an hour of daylight can mean a walk for the dogs. As for the 'cold' this is Australia, we barely get winter so wear an extra jumper in the morning or whatever. Who cares about going to work in the dark? What will you miss? I dont get people who 'dont like getting up in the dark' - whats wrong with seeing sunrise? Sunrise is nice.

I'm with you on point 3, only I'd take it further and make daylight saving(s) manditory for all states all the time because the clock-changing shits me. With this system, point 2. becomes irrelevant as daylight saving(s) would become the normal time and the term would become obsolete AND I get to watch sunrise and sunset every day.

Anonymous said...

Err, Patch, that's very illogical. What you're proposing isn't daylight savings or clock-changing, it's merely timezone-shifting.

Besides, if everyone really wanted that, wouldn't they just set business hours to be 8am-4pm and school hours to be 8am-2pm?

patchouligirl said...

Besides, if everyone really wanted that, wouldn't they just set business hours to be 8am-4pm and school hours to be 8am-2pm? Sounds good to me - actually in Germany, school hours are something like 7.30am - 1pm and the kids come home for lunch which is the main meal of the day. Breakfast and dinner are basically the same, bread rolls, jam, cheese - having a simpler meal before bed makes a lot of sense. And while we're at it, I'd also move the main School holidays to run November - December or March - April as Jan/Feb are too hot for camping. And lets move Christmas to July permanently as I like my annual turkey dinner but not for lunch on a 40 degree day.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Breakfast and dinner are basically the same, bread rolls, jam, cheese

And beer.

Don't forget the beer.

Unknown said...

I'd support the school day being 8am-2pm, at least for high schools. That's the only time we get any real work done anyway, the rest is just filler.

I'm probably not supposed to say that, but it's true.

It'd only really work though if it was the working day (and not just the school day) that ended at 2pm. Otherwise you've got the unsupervised kidlets running about in the afternoons, drinking all the beer and eating all the bread and jam while their parents are still at work.

patchouligirl said...

School knocks of at 3.30pm now and business hours are until 5pm so the shortfall already exists. Business could start and finish earlier the same as school though. I dont know about you guys but by 3pm I'm sleepy anyway. Spain deals with the problem with a 'siesta'. And in this country in Summer - if you work outdoors you're way better off starting at 6am and finishing as early as possible, which is what a lot of the tradesies already do.

Anonymous said...

The problem with your proposal, Patch, is that in winter, the school and business starting time (9am) is perfect, when you take into account rising at or just after dawn (6:30am), having breakfast, getting kids prepared for school, and battling traffic to work.

It's only summer that has that extra hour of daylight in the morning, that would make moving the business/school start time back an hour earlier appealing.

No one really wants to rise before dawn in winter because the work day starts so early.

What one needs, rather than permanently moving the business/school start time to 8am year round, is (bear with me here) some sort of 'clock-changing', where, say, you set the clocks back an hour during the summer months, to make use of that extra hour or two of sunshine, then set them back when the days grow shorter.

Waddya reckon? We could set it to run from, say, October to April, whereupon clocks would return to normal. Think it'll ever catch on?

Unknown said...

School knocks of at 3.30pm

Sweet jesus? Really? We stick with the old 3pm here. In fact, it was 2.50pm at my old school.

And, frankly, I'm sleepy by 8am, so the fact I'm willing to get up and work is only due to the fact I'm getting paid and has nothing to do with how I feel. If I was worried about how I feel at work I wouldn't be a high school teacher.

(Sorry. Bad week. Will stop now.)

Puss In Boots said...

EMS, my school used to start at 7.50 and finish at 3.30 Monday to Thursday, and then we had Friday off.

patchouligirl said...

Think it'll ever catch on?
Not in Queensland! Get up at 6.30am? Half the days gone! Our alarm goes off at 5am, Mr Patch is gone by 6am and frankly I think he stuffs around because I never needed more than half an hour to get out the door, still drinking my coffee. And maybe I was out half an hour on school finish time but it has been some time since I was there. Half an hour isn't enough to change the argument anyway.

Anonymous said...

The sun doesn't rise till 6:30am in winter. Which was my point. A year round early start time to the day works great in summer, then sucks in winter. Which is why they have DST in the first place.

patchouligirl said...

The fact that its dark before 6.30am in Winter and colder doesn't bother me as I'm not wanting to be outside in the mornings anyway and theres always heaters and lights. Its when I get home from work that I might want to walk the dogs and I hate getting home in the dark. It comes down to the old 'cant please all of the people all of the time' I guess. Interesting that there are no comments objecting to my radical plans of moving school holidays and xmas though.

Perseus said...

If you move Christmas exactly 6 months back to June 25 I'll be pissed off 'cos that's my birthday, and that means I'll get less presents. Not that I get any anyway, but you know, it's the principle.

Anonymous said...

Perseus, if you held it on the winter solstice (June 21) it wouldn't fall exactly on your birthday.

You'd still get less presents though, but you'd have to blame that on your parents for poorly timing your conception.

patchouligirl said...

No the 'Christmas in July' concept is already out there and enjoying a degree of success, lets piss of the Cancerians instead.

Unknown said...

and then we had Friday off.

Now there's an idea. I like this school you went to Puss. Where was it?

Puss In Boots said...

Out in the sticks, EMS. I think they brought it in because the farmers were complaining they weren't getting enough slave labour out of their kids on the weekends. We were supposed to either go to a work placement, a TAFE/tertiary study course, stay home to do homework with parental supervision, or sit in the library at school.

Of course, my mother refused to do what most of the parents did, which was let their kids stay home even if they weren't there, and made me go to school and sit in the library with the 'tards. I did get to read a lot of books, though.