General Chat

The clocks in the UK went back this weekend

BUT, if you have contacts in the USA and Canada ..................

our clocks do not change until NEXT weekend, Sunday November 3rd.

And for those of us in Western Australia, there is no faffing around remembering to change anything, sensible people that we are :-D :-D :-D

Allan ...........

our Premier of BC held an online referendum re staying on DST all year. The result in September was 93% to go with the no change.

He wanted it to happen this year, but he also was trying to work in concert with the 3 US states south of us.

Unfortunately they cannot change without Congress in Washington DC approving it, and they don't seem to work very fast back there.

Our Premier can make the change without any approval from the Feds ...... but he hasn't said anything yet.

I guess there is still hope for it to happen in BC this year. If not, we'll have to change back now and forward in March.


There are 2 small areas of BC that don't change time ............ that way they're in synch with the rest of BC for half the year and with Alberta the rest of the time!! :-D

Since we've been here (1982) there have been three referendums in WA regarding this matter and each time the idea of introducing DST has been soundly rejected.

For WA it actually makes sense as most of our business ties are to Asia and we keep in the same time zone as most of those countries.

I would prefer to stay on GMT, not DST, but most of our ties are south from WA, through Oregon and into California, so it makes sense to stay on the same time.

Actually, I heard somewhere recently that US states don't need Congress approval to stay on GMT but do if they wish to stay on DST ................ so maybe we'll have another referendum here in the next couple of months in not changing clocks next March! :-S

From April 2021 6 monthly clock changes will end in the EU. Countries will have to choose between permanent summertime or permanent wintertime. The UK will stay with clock changing post brexit. That would leave the island of Ireland with two time zones.

Even if there are no changes of mind before then, that ought not to bamboozle them.

If Oz can cope ..... :-D

If you want to go there then it is too late to start from here.

Well, USA and Canada no longer have 6 monthly clock changes, haven't had since the days of George "Dubya" Bush's presidency, or ca 12 years ago

DST runs from 2nd Sunday in March to 1st Sunday in November .................. so we basically have 4 months of Standard Time and 8 months of DST.

Reasons why the EU has dropped any version of DST include (a) with modern technology no energy is saved (b) it is damaging to people's health (c) north of the 50th parallel it is strongly associated with an increase in accidents.

In England around 80% want summertime all the year round but Scotland always vetoes the idea. It's grim in Dundee.

JoyLouise, not all Oz is change-free, Only WA QLD and the NT. All other States do change, in fact just a couple of weeks ago.

WA did try it back in the early 1990's for a trial period, followed by a referendum which decisively rejected carrying on with DST

I knew that Tas and Vic still changed, Allan - unless they've changed their systems.

We will still have to change our clocks this coming weekend ............... I found an obscure statement by our Premier from a couple of weeks ago.

Conferring with the Governor of Washington state had them both convinced that as it is extremely doubtful that the guys in Congress will have any time to spare to debate the matter until after they have decided whether to go ahead with impeachment proceedings, and as he really does think that we should do it in concert with the 3 US states south of us, then the switch to no change will be made in Fall 2020.