When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
I loathe Daylight Savings Time and did even before I had children. Now it's particularly horrible since that "extra hour" you get means absolutely nothing to children who will wake when they darn well feel like it.
The definitive article against the practice was written by John Miller years ago. He dispelled some of the myths surrounding its supposed benefits and showed how its passage into law was an early case of crony capitalism.
In other words, no right thinking person can support it. Not that I'd waste my time trying to fight it. Instead, I wasted my time reading this article on time zones. It was a fascinating look at how time zones were developed and codified. The exceptions are the best, though.
See, when it's noon in Greenwich, it's 8:30 a.m. in Newfoundland (the self-governed British Dominion chose their own time zone), 7:30 a.m. in Venezuela (Hugo Chavez wanted "a more fair distribution of the sunrise") and:
... it’s 8 p.m. in Perth (Western Australia), 9:30 p.m. in Adelaide (South Australia & Alice Springs (Northern Territory), and 10 p.m. in Sydney (New South Wales) & Brisbane (Queensland). Northern Territory and South Australia have been on a half-hour offset since 1899 because most of their population resides in the eastern half. These times are accurate unless it’s Daylight Saving Time, which only five of Australia’s eight states & territories observe. The other three do not, splitting the country into five separate time zones for half the year. During DST, which started this past weekend for the country, it’s 8 p.m. in Perth, 9:30 p.m. in Alice Springs, 10:30 p.m. in Adelaide, 10 p.m. in Brisbane, and 11 p.m. in Sydney. Please note that it’s earlier in Brisbane than in Adelaide despite Brisbane being farther east—this is like if it was suddenly a half-hour later in Chicago than in Boston or New York.
And that’s not all. A small finger of the southeasternmost edge of Western Australia, comprising five small towns, observes a 45-minute offset from the rest of the state. Though it’s not a big deal—the area has about 200 residents—there are helpful road signs to alert motorists of the oddity.
Oh those wacky humans.
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Jan '11
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
Mollie,
We don't daylight savings in Arizona (although the Navajo and Supai do) and China has only one time zone. . .
May '11
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
Fortunately it is always five o'clock somewhere.
Jun '10
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
And the sun never sets on the British empire [woops! time/space continuum problem].
Apr '11
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
In India they refused to adopt two timezones and instead split the difference.
There's a beautiful children's book about this called "Somewhere in the World Right now" that I used to explain to my very young children why its night time for their grandparents when it's morning for us, and afternoon for their aunt in England.
May '10
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
Thanks Molly was not aware of the WA adjacent stretch of land with its own time zone.
With Australian Daylight savings beginning on the First Sunday in October and ending first Sunday in April, Aussies deny the need to conform to the usual conventional start for Summer Time. Both Western Australia, and Queensland refuse to have Summer Time in spite of numerous referenda on the issue, and the usual rural opposition to having to rise even earlier for farm duties. Queensland where you set your clocks back one an hour, and your mind back 20 years, is the old joke.
Flying from South Australia to Queensland, I cross, four time zones from South Australia, into NSW, through the Australian Capital Territory including its land bridge Jervis Bay extension on the Pacific East Coast (think Washington DC with an piece of excised coast at Annapolis being declared part of DC to give coastal access), into NSW again, then back to Queensland. BTW Each state has its own rail gauge size different to the others.
Never guess we were six colonies separately ruled by Great Britain ...
Jun '10
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
Russia just got rid of daylight savings time (or maybe just not changing their clocks from now on). Many Russians would go into hysterics every time the clocks changed because they said it was bad for peoples' health and caused emotional problems. On the fringe, some people thought it was some Western plot to... well, who knows... Anyway, it's now over and done for them.
I believe Nepal is at a 15 minute increment time zone difference from India because they don't want to copy them. At least that's what a Nepali friend told me. Yes, we humans are interesting.
Apr '11
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
In a graduate seminar on history of technology we were discussing the introduction of time zones in 1870s by the railroads. Previously, every station used the local sun time, which made schedules unstable and increased the risk of two trains trying to occupy the same space on different time continua. There was some opposition to the RR's arrogance in defying God's time; one minister expressed his indignation by smashing his pocket watch to pieces during his sermon.
With a straight face I told how the idea of time zones originated with the trans-Atlantic steam ship companies, the innovation of a Cunard manager named Alexander Ragg.
"They were" I deadpanned, "consequently known as 'Alexander Ragg's time bands'".
I think the demise of my academic career commenced at that point.
Jan '11
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
That made oi larf, Grendel.
Dec '10
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
I've messed up and got myself on evening shift for the Fall back this year. Now instead of enjoying an hour of extra sleep I have to look with trepidation to Spring forward, probably in the middle of operations when I have to rise at 3. Losing an hour then really hurts.
Mar '11
Re: When it's Noon in Greenwich, it's 11:45 PM in Southeastern Australia?
You've forgotten that the town of Broken Hill is a different time zone from the rest of N.S.W. I think the owners of Broken Hill Pty.Ltd. thought it would help them play the stock market somehow, while the Barrier Industrial Council, usually referred to as the Kremlin, just wanted to be different. BHP deserted the town when the ore ran out and the Kremlin died but the anomoly remains, perhaps because the town has found a second life as a haven for ratbags.