It was reported in today's (30 July) Times that the Sri Lankan government has introduced daylight saving time. Two quotes: `Moving the clocks forward an hour was announced the previous day without debate, so most of the country turned up for work to find they were an hour late. Sri Lanka is a nation of clock towers, erected by a zealous government to ensure punctuality. But most clocks still show the old time, people still find their trains have left an hour early, the shops stay open an hour too late and it no longer gets dark on time.' `The clocks were changed for the first time in the country's history because poor rainfall has disrupted hydroelectric power stations and created an acute power shortage. A few months ago power was being shut off for eight hours a day.' [The cost of fighting a war against the Tamil Tigers for the last 13 years can't have helped power supplies much either.] This has, not surprisingly, caused chaos and confusion, not least among astologers and Buddhist priests organising the Perehara festival in Kandy. The report doesn't give any dates or times but it does say `And today, for the tenth consecutive night, Sri Lanka's Buddhist pageant, Perehara, will begin an hour late' so a guess at the start date would be 21 July. The Times is on the Internet (and has been since 1 Jan 96) so you can see the full report by starting at http://www.the-times.co.uk. In theory you need to register first but going straight to: http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/96/07/30/timfgnafr01001.html?100nn... where nnnn is any 4 digit number should get you there, by pretending to be whoever got that number when they registered. :-) Peter Ilieve peter@aldie.co.uk