http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16611058 Mr Rees-Mogg has tabled an amendment to the proposed legislation suggesting the "the county of Somerset as defined by the Lieutenants Act shall revert to the customary time used prior to the Great Western Railway time established in 1840". Jacob Ress-Mogg MP is quite a character, and it's a very conservative character. He has that special skill of being nostalgic not only for a time before he was born, but for a time before his great-great-grandparents were born. His amendment is extremely unlikely to be adopted, but its prospective consequences bear some thinking about. He'd make Somerset the only place on Earth where the timezone is not a multiple of five minutes offset from UT. In fact, it wouldn't even be an exact multiple of *one* minute, if implemented in full. And since the pre-1840 custom was for every town to have its own time, we wouldn't just need Europe/Taunton, but potentially several other new zones for different Somerset towns. If any form of the Rees-Mogg amendment were to be adopted, it would more likely be a single timezone for the whole county, an integral number of minutes offset from UT. Taunton (largest town in, and capital of, Somerset) is at some 3.1 degrees west, suggesting a 12 minute offset. -zefram
Zefram <zefram@fysh.org> wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16611058
Mr Rees-Mogg has tabled an amendment to the proposed legislation suggesting the "the county of Somerset as defined by the Lieutenants Act shall revert to the customary time used prior to the Great Western Railway time established in 1840".
Back to the era of clocks like this (though Bristol is adjacent to rather than in Somerset): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Exchangeclock.JPG And law suits like Curtis v. March: http://www.uakron.edu/law/lawreview/v36/docs/parrish36.1.pdf What fun! Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch <dot@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/ Biscay, FitzRoy: Westerly or southwesterly, 4 or 5 in south, 5 to 7 in north. Moderate or rough. Rain or drizzle, fog patches in north. Moderate or poor, occasionally very poor in north.
On 18 Jan 2012, at 15:05, Zefram wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16611058
Mr Rees-Mogg has tabled an amendment to the proposed legislation suggesting the "the county of Somerset as defined by the Lieutenants Act shall revert to the customary time used prior to the Great Western Railway time established in 1840".
It looks as though we will be spared Jacob Rees-Mogg's eccentric Europe/Taunton. Rebecca Harris' Daylight Saving Bill was talked out at its report stage today. It is just possible that the government will give it some of its own time, but I think that is unlikely. So another attempt to move the UK's clocks fails. I doubt it will be the last. The BBC news report on this is at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16649868>. The report stage debate is currently at <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/c_01.htm>. That URL is always for the current day, so will change to Monday's business on Monday. The Hansard report for this debate will then be linked from the Daylight Saving Bill page at <http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/daylightsaving.html>. -- Peter Ilieve peter@aldie.co.uk
participants (3)
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Peter Ilieve -
Tony Finch -
Zefram