All hail Mr Peter Rushforth of West Yorkshire for proposing a solution to one of the great problems of our age: dark winters. Writing to the Times this week, Mr Rushforth opines that "the simple answer if people don't want children and workers going home from school in the dark is for all of them to start an hour or more earlier in the morning, rather than artificially altering the time by adjusting clocks.....let's stop this disruption twice a year and stick to good old GMT all year round".
There you go -- a simple solution that has apparently evaded policymakers not only in the UK but also across Europe and North America, where the siren song of clock changes has also been heard. I propose we set Mr Rushforth to work on the practicalities right away. Let's see -- all train and bus timetables will have to be shifted by an hour to get folk to work on time (I'm prepared to bet right now that Mr Rushforth is not the driver of the 5:30 am -- soon to be 4:30 am -- train from his local station to Leeds every day); entertainment and pub opening times will have to be shifted because people will not be able to stay up late; the entire country will have to agree on which day we all switch schedules (and it better not be cold and rainy that day); and we'll have to explain all of this carefully to our foreign trading partners, as there's a teeny-weeny possibility that they will not follow our lead, at least until we work the bugs out.
Give me a call when you've got all of that in place Mr Rushforth, because I have another assignment waiting for you: herding cats.
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