This weekend in the UK, the clocks go back one hour at 2am on Sunday morning. Which means every mechanical clock in this great house, of which there are many, must be manually changed. British Summer Time (aka Daylight Savings Time) was originally a method of making best use of daylight in factories in an age when artificial light was expensive and unreliable, it can be argued that in our modern world of brightly lit homes and workplaces it no longer has a purpose, and that the time should be a fixed thing and not jump about randomly. On the other hand though are those who believe darker mornings would lead to more accidents on the roads, and that people wake up better when it's already light outside.

I gather the European Union has voted to abolish the clock changes as of 2021, with countries opting to either switch permanently to summer time and stay there, in which case their last clock change will be next spring, or switch permanemntly to winter time, in which case their final change will be next autumn. Given the UK has left the EU I've no idea what our government plans, and on recent form it's entirely possible our government has no idea what it plans to do either.

So, what do the people of the UMD think on the subject? Are there clock changes where you are, and do you want to keep or get rid of them? Or indeed get rid of clocks altogether?

Up here in Canada, we've had to move our changing of the clocks back because the Americans did so. So instead of doing it on (Canadian) Thanksgiving, we now do it on November 1. It was felt, quite rightly, that there would be too much confusion to have different time zones across the border for several months of the year.

We have an uptick in motor vehicle accidents on the day after the time change.

I can't be the only one who thought this thread was going to be about fucking clocks.

Two things:

1 - there are a lot more time lords in the forum than I would have expected

2 - Moving the clocks is stupid. If it's too dark for school or for work. CHANGE THE FUCKING START TIME FOR SCHOOL AND WORK. The entire world's tradition of being awake and working only during daylight hours is an archaic remnant of agrarian societies. We literally had to "get up with the chickens" because roosters make so damned much noise, it's impossible to sleep through their morning revelry.

Personally I get up around mid-day and go to sleep just before sunrise. (the rock star shift). I don't do mornings anyway, so I don't really care if it's dark at 8am. That's an evil time and should be avoided.

An example of how easily we are all fooled en mass into action and behaviour in defiance of logical thought simply because something's been a part of our cultural and administrative life for so long. And not important enough in its effect to contend or register protest against.

Because most of the technological institutions responsible for setting our times for us in the first place are doing this without question and even 'automatically' changing the times on our devices - even those of us who do think the concept is ridiculous are forced to comply - especially if we intend to have anything to do with other human beings. A vicious circle of compliance.

My family loves daylight saving. My friends do not really like it. I can see the benefits of both, but I prefer normal time. Sure you get home in the dark but the day in normal time just seems to have more structure to them than daylight savings.

Alas I do enjoy being able to paint in longer daylight; enjoying the twilight before eventually fleeing from the hordes of mosquitoes that find my leviathan frame a tasty meal.

"with countries opting to either switch permanently to summer time and stay there"

That is my favorite option: stick to the time we have now: clocks set ahead.
Ok. I understand your poll questions now.
I voted for Burn All Clocks instead.

Maybe they can get rid of that stupid electoral college system in the USA, too,
and replace it with direct voting, with a Borda count to take into account
individual voters' rankings of candidates, while they're at it.

You've misunderstood the poll, the question was whether we should change the clocks twice a year, or set to a fixed time and leave it there. Precisely which time should be permanently set wasn't specified, there are many options, one of our former prime ministers was in favour of switching permanently to double summer time, two hours forwards, for maximum long summer evenings. I was wondering when someone would chose the abomination option though, like Soundguy I am surprised at how many time lords we have in these forums, perhaps some of them could nip back to 1992 and give Rob Blaine some 4k video cameras?

Also "what we have now" depends on where you are, what we have here is winter time, as the clockfuckery was at 2am last night in the UK. So today we have had to do without Maude and Felicity as they're having the day off after running round the entire Hall last night resetting all the clocks.

i might start a poll... i was wondering a tiny bit myself, but as the daylight savings moment approaches, that was my first guess.

Here in f-USA, cell phones switch automatically, most of the sheeple probably don't even realize it happened, besides a little confusion that sunrise/sunset doesn't seem to happen at quite the same time as yesterday?

what the heck is a "Time Lord" anyways???

Well, in a way it was, just not that kind of fucking.


Yep. Clockfuckery was the weekend just passed for the UK, I gather it's the one coming in the US.


Same here, pretty much all modern devices will auto-update, and many people won't notice but for those of us who try and be more in tune with the days and seasons, it's a right PITA. Time should flow smoothly, not leap about like a demented thing.


You've never seen Doctor Who? Oh my sweet summer child, one of the finest sci-fi series ever created, and arguably the finest thing the BBC ever made.


This man speaks truth. All should listen to him.

i think i saw part of an episode back in the 1980's... wasn't really for me... how do you like that new female Dr.Who?

She's fine, but the writing is a few steps down from where it was under the previous showrunner.

As we've just had Clockfuckery 2021 part 1, time for an update, apparently thanks to this damned plague, the plans to finally abolish the whole damn mess in Europe this year have been put on hold. So clockfuckery will continue for some years yet before someone finally drives a diamond-tipped spear through it's evil mechanical heart.

Meanwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4EUTMPuvHo

It made more sense when we were a rural society.

Maybe mudders have a different perspective?

What more can I say? .....

Doesn't make any sense in any context. Like Spinal Tap's 11 volume dial. There is so much daylight and so much darkness and the same measure of time just different names and a transposition of activity. A 'timewash'.

Starting work at 8 today and pretending it's 9. Take that daylight! Ha!

I have to remember to adjust the time when checking tide tables ahead of a trip to the estuary mud, but that's the only impact on mudding that I can think of. (tide tables are usually in GMT)