And it's stupid time again

At varying dates in the late winter/early spring, most northern hemisphere countries engage in this mass stupidity known as 'putting the clocks forward', or daylight savings time (DST). The idea originated with New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson in 1895, although in Britain it appears to be one loony in particular who lobbied for it in the early years of the 20th century. In 1905, William Willett became dismayed that in the summer, many people slept through the early daylight hours, and he also disliked having to cut short his evening rounds of golf due to sunset. Although he lobbied for the introduction of DST, Britain didn't adopt it until the first world war.

DST is particularly daft in a country as far north as Scotland. In Dundee, at a latitude of 56 N (further north than every major Canadian city, even Edmonton, Alberta, just to give you an idea), DST means that in much of June and July, the sun doesn't set until after 10 PM. In fact, the only European country that seems to have realized that DST is utterly stupid is the furthest north of them all - Iceland - which does not use DST. Bizarrely, the Canadian province of Saskatchewan also doesn't use DST. Although this is eminently sensible of them, there are many other reasons why living in Saskatchewan is a bad idea.

In Scotland, it would make much more sense to put the clocks forward in the winter, so we'd get sunset at 16.30 rather than 15.30. In fact, if we retained GMT from March to October, giving sunset times between about 18.30 and 21.00 during the spring and summer, then switched back to a later time during the autumn and winter, it would even things out a bit and give us some decent daylight hours in the afternoon all year round. We'd also get a bit of darkness in the mid to late evenings even in June. Won't someone think of the vampires?

Global warming (not that it exists; I'm just saying...) has also been blamed on the introduction of an "extra hour" of sunlight due to DST. I'm not entirely convinced that anyone who proposes this is being serious, but given the intelligence levels of much of the world's population, it's more than a little probable. These are no doubt the same people who thought the 21st century started in 2000 rather than 2001. The ability to count seems to have been another casualty of declining standards in schools.