The Anonymous Widower

The Advantages of European Time

I was at Newmarket Races last night and got chatting to a friend about one of my beefs with the UK; the fact that we don’t have the same time as most of the UK.

To take a narrow view, horse racing would benefit enormously, in that with longer evenings, there would be a much longer time, when evening meetings would be viable.  As they would generally be an hour later, there would be much more time to finish work and come racing, so it would be likely that current evening meetings would benefit.  Not that last night wasn’t a large crowd!

Now if racing would benefit, so would lots of other outdoor activities and sports, from just walking in the park to playing a game of golf.  I also think that some sports like football, where they use floodlights would benefit financially as they wouldn’t need to be used so much.  Aren’t we supposed to be saving energy?

There is always the argument that more children would get injured going to school in the dark.  This is wrong, as when we didn’t put the clocks forward in the winter of 1968-69, the number actually went down, as most accidents occur after school and then it was light.  Incidentally, I worked at ICI at the time, and the worst thing that happened was that people left their lights on when they parked after driving to work.  Cars warn you now!

And there is the argument about farmers not wanting to get up in the dark.  I have kept horses for years and you do a lot of the work according to the sun and not the clock.  All my farmer friends are the same and don’t care at all what the clock says.

So is the real reason, we don’t have European time, the fact that if we did, the tabloids would say that we are cow-towing to the wishes of the EU. Bollocks!

You will note I have not said anything about the international advantages of being on the same time as Europe. They are so overwhelming, I’ve not bothered.

July 25, 2009 - Posted by AnonW | Sport, World | Europe, Horse Racing, Politics