Clocks have gone back this morning...

Indeed, at 02.00 this morning the time in Britain reverted to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT - website - and many thanks for the image above), that is, the clocks went back an hour. Now, this may be great for people who stay in bed until later in the day, for me it just meant I was awake earlier, sort of, because my body clock doesn't recognise changing time, and many will know that I am an early riser!

Why is there 'Summer Time' then? In many parts of the world altering clocks has been used to get the most out of hours of daylight supposedly, but why not just keep GMT then, if we adopt it for light purposes, surely in the summer more hours of useful daylight is completely unnecessary? It doesn't make sense in the modern world. However, it's not just in Britain that clocks go back and forth, no, in much of the Western Wold it does too, but there are many countries that don't follow this process, including Japan, India, China, countries near the Equator for obvious reasons, similarly at/or near the Poles, eg parts of Canada and Greenland, and Argentina.

So why is the 'Prime Meridian' line at Greenwich, and has been since 1884? This boils down to "that in the late 19th century, 72% of the world's commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian... (and) ...would be of advantage to the largest number of people" (website).

So there you have it, I trust that not too many people will be reading this as soon as I publish it, excepting 'early birds' like me, and maybe people living in different time zones. I also trust that 'night owls' will be enjoying the extra rest, and I'm sure they will not be reading this at time of publication, unless, etc etc... 

Let's just stick to GMT I suggest, I'm not so fond of this type of time travelling! 😉