While the US advanced to summer time last weekend, the UK and Europe are about to go forward this weekend. At precisely 02:00 on Sunday, March 26th, the arbiter of time (GMT = +0) will spring the UK forward by 1 hour to get us to British Summer Time BST (GMT +1) Daylight Savings (DS) and make us older an hour earlier for the summer months. Forwarding the clock in the spring and then backward in the fall/autumn, Daylight Savings is a practice many countries have known since the turn of the 20th Century.
Pro-DS say added light at the end of the day helped us out in wars, increasing productivity and reducing darkness-induced accidents. But nay-sayers say there isn’t any actual evidence that DS increases productivity or gives health benefits. Because of this the countries in the EU, with the exception of Iceland, voted to scrap Daylight Savings in 2018.
But it’s 2023 and the near-unanimous vote still hasn’t been actioned. It seems that socially we’re still weighing in like we used to – isn't a bit more sunlight at the pub in the evening worth the hassle of changing clock dials? These days, that’s all done for us anyway, at least on our devices.
So no, despite Einstein's take on time, we still don’t seem to know how to carve it up. My brain does get a little cooked thinking about traveling through time zones even if I’ve enjoyed going west on a birthday and arriving sooner than the time I left. I do get Inceptioned trying to understand why Paris is simultaneously before and after London. Though in a time zone ahead of London, Paris is also slightly east of London, making the sun set there before London even though Paris is already later than London on the clock. Sure. But the temporally enlightened say I should just enjoy the present. So even if I don't know what that is I guess I should just kick back and contemplate the time warp this weekend as we hurtle forward to rescue daylight.