British summertime and the living is easy

I heard recently that Prime Minister David Cameron is considering a plan to introduce permanent British Summer time.  The plans are to be debated in the House of Commons later this year, and depending on the outcome this could perhaps become reality.

Glastonbury is obviously in the south of England where the change would have less effect than for example Scotland, and of course some say we already have our own unique “Glastonbury time” (although admittedly this has little relevance in the amount of daylight per day).   Having said that, apart from the street cleaners and the street drinkers, very few people in our town actually rise before midday, so darker mornings will have little effect on most of us, whereas for the unlucky northerners the darker morning mean it possibly will not get light until around 10am (or later) during the depths of winter, but don’t they all still work down the mines anyway where it is permanently dark?

This is a rural area, and perhaps the idea won’t be well received by the farming community, but I suppose they could buy a few extra lights for their tractors and maybe there would be less hazards on the country roads as a result, as they come speeding round the lanes on the wrong side of the road.

Perhaps it is a case for England (and Wales?) to adopt the new proposals and leave it up to the Scottish Parliament to do whatever they like with regards to the time they set their clocks.

What I’d personally like to see is metric time with a 100 days a year, 10 days a week, 10 hours a day and 100 minutes an hour (although as I’ve just thought of it I haven’t yet worked out the practicalities, but it can’t be as ridiculous as it sounds).

There are plenty of arguments for and against the idea, so what does anyone else think?

Photo by John Carmichael