Time's change

I have a nice Casio MTG 930DU radio controlled solar powered watch!

But it thinks "LON" (London) time zone is still UTC+1. Stupid thing.

It even gets a bit in the signal from the radio transmission formerly known as Rugby so that it knows it is back to UTC. Lets hope it works it out next week.

Mind you - I did get wondering. There are things the current young generation just don't know any more that were normal when I were a lad (see, I am turning in to an old fogy).

I wonder how long before kids of today just do not even realise the clocks change at all as every clock and device they have just handles it. It must be getting like that. I don't have to "change clocks" any more (apart from my buggy watch). I can see it being the case that one day I have to explain to some 20 year old that the clock do change and that is why once a year he gets up feeling more tired than usual on a Sunday... After all how many would understand the concept of "winding" a watch or clock?

It'll happen!


  1. It'd be even better if we abandoned the whole changing the clock bi-annually thing anyway.

    Stay with GMT or BST, there really is no need to keep flipping.

  2. I totally agree. It is silly. "time" should reflect the truth of the matter, i.e. where the sun is. For practical reasons we work in 1 hour steps rather than change as we move east/west, and that I can understand. But why faff about?

    If people want to work later or earlier during the year because of sunlight, fine, but don't change the definition of time.

    I noted that Singapore clearly has the wrong time as they have sunrise around 7am and sunset around 7pm. Clearly it should be 6am and 6am. They have no summer time being equatorial.

    I have this issue with the definition of "noon". I have always considered "noon" as "sun over head" middle of the day. In the summer that is a few minutes after 1pm BST where I live.

  3. I know of somebody who insists that 'after noon' means 'after lunch' and insists on saying 'Good morning' until he's eaten. [[SLAP]]

  4. I think it's seen as unpopular to expect people who work with the light (farmers, builders and such) were asked to get up an hour earlier at certain times of year, hence the changing clocks.
    But personally I think it's BLX, and I'd much rather stick with GMT (so the Sun is at its zenith at noon (12:00 or thereabouts - there's obviously a few minutes' difference between Great Yarmouth and Land's End).
    My "Radio Controlled" watch doesn't get the MSF signal where I usually leave it, but I've found it's much better if you stand it "face up" rather than lying it down in the normal way. Trouble is, I can never remember how to tell it to turn on the receiver - it turns off if it can't get a signal when it tries.

  5. I have the Casio WVA-430U solar radio watch, and it coped perfectly with the change.

  6. My watch coped perfectly with the change, probably something to do with it staying on GMT all year round. Amazing how much amusement you can get with that while everyone else is messing with BST.
    I tend to let the PC's do the BST thing, mainly because of the PVR pulling over the air listings which need to match up for it to be of any use. (it does hack me off that if you ever boot windows that it'll mangle the hardware clock though)
    Yes, the watch is solar powered, but only because I'm too old to be annoyed with a wind-up one.

  7. I saw a documentary a couple of years ago about Windsor Castle. One of the staff had the unenviable job of changing the time on the 400+ clocks and was required to complete it by the end of the day.

    Be thankful for small mercies!

  8. That watch may also be able to pick up the radio signal from Frankfurt, rather than the transmitter in Rugby(but transmitted from Cumbria), so that transmitter will be on European summer time (which changes this coming weekend)

  9. Err, my understanding was that the change was the same in all of Europe. I'll go check now!

  10. "While European nations have been taking advantage of the time change for decades, in 1996 the European Union (EU) standardized an EU-wide "summertime period." The EU version of Daylight Saving Time runs from the last Sunday in March through the last Sunday in October"

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Summer_Time

  11. We changed last Sunday here in Malta.

  12. It's the US that changes a week later.. /me works for a US company

