For the times they are a-changing

The clocks will have to be moved back tonight as the official Summer Time or Daylight Saving Time comes to an end. Twice a year we follow this strange ritual of confusing ourselves by adjusting the clocks.

The idea was that by making people get up earlier in the summer energy could be preserved. The economic savings, however, did not materialise, and on balance it is thought that there is even a negative impact. But that doesn’t mean we’re soon going to stop the experiment, although a report assessing the impact of the European Directive on Daylight Saving Time is due at the end of 2007, so there is still a shimmer of hope. But usually, if ideas have become tradition by the time they have proven to be follies, we cling to them nonetheless.

Some people even suggest we should stick with Summer Time all year round, instead of the natural arrangement where the sun actually reaches its zenith at noon. We live in an artificial world, and for the Nanny state it must be satisfying that it controls time as well. However, as rightly pointed out in the criticisms of Daylight saving time, farmers have to suffer the most because they haven’t managed to teach their animals how to read the clock.

For Muslims there is the added inconvenience of having to change their prayer and fasting times, too, so for the time change to happen during Ramadan can be a real nuisance.