Wednesday 13 March 2024

Daylight saving is now beyond

usefulness. It is a bad joke.

It is no secret that I have never liked "daylight saving". I am a morning sort of person. I get my best work done then.  I miss the light early mornings of my childhood, before the nonsense started.

This morning I have put a load of washing out in the 7am semi-darkness. As I did that work began again on the demolition site two doors down. Yes, they can legally start at 7am in the semi-darkness. 

We have almost another month of this madness. Our clocks don't return to "normal" time until the 7th of April. It is even later this year than it was last. It is being done to appease those who tell us that this is what people want because they are going to "Festival" activities and playing sport. 

The reality is that only a very small proportion of the population is doing these things and they mostly live in the city. People in rural areas have other concerns. 

But there is also another little oddity. This state is already out of kilter. We are currently nine and a half hours ahead of GMT but we should only be nine hours ahead. The half hour is wrong. If anywhere should be half an hour ahead it is the neighbouring states. What we should really be doing is turning the clocks back an hour and a half...and leaving them there.

Daylight saving is supposed to be a good thing. It is "used" by people to do things in the evenings...or so they tell us. I have yet to discover anyone who consistently uses the lighter evenings to garden, play sport, go to an open air concert, walk the dog or even just sit outside with a glass in their hand watching the kids tear up and down the lawn they have just mowed in the evening. It just does not happen. People may do these occasionally, very occasionally. Most of the time they come home, make a meal, chivvy their young into doing their homework and watch television or use their computers. They go to bed at what seems to be the "right time" because they always go to bed at that time. They get up at the "right time" in the morning because that is the time they have always done it. They feel constantly tired but they put it down to other factors. The idea that they might not be getting enough sleep when their body tells them they need it is something they dismiss as nonsense. 

At the changeover point back to a time which is more in keeping with the natural rhythm of nature we will have the usual spate of accidents caused by the time change. There will be other health related issues too although they will not be quite as bad as we go back closer to what our bodies tell us we need. 

I am willing to accept that daylight saving may have some use somewhere. I do not know where this could be but perhaps some far flung point of the globe has a need for it. It isn't needed here. At our latitude it makes no sense at all, especially when we are not even in time with our longitude.

If you live in this part of the world and really use daylight saving every day please let me know. I would like to "meet" someone who really benefits from it.  

1 comment:

gemma said...

I hate daylight saving and at each end I experience “jet lag” for want of a better description. I do mow in the late evening when it’s stinking hot, but I would do that without daylight saving. I love mornings and am up with the sun every day, summer and winter, it’s quiet and when the children were younger I could get lots of the day’s work done before they were out of bed.