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[Antoine Leca]

Alex LIVINGSTON wrote:
> 
> At 14:07 +0100 2001-02-12, Antoine Leca wrote:
> >3) I do not really see the use of it. When I am in Western Spain, in Winter
<snip>
> You mean "When I am in western Spain in winter (standard time, you'll
> say), the _clock_ is more ahead of the _sun_ [more than an hour and a
> half] than it is when I am in eastern Germany in summer (daylight
> time, you'll say) [about an hour].".

Thanks for the correction!


> PS:
> 
> You might have chosen eastern Poland as your second location,
<2nd snip>
> (But perhaps you're never in Poland or Norway. :-) )

Yes, the very reason!

 
> The breadth of the European central time zone (more than three and a
> half hours) rivals that of all-one-time-zone China. I understand,
> however, that in Spain, lunch is at three in the afternoon

That depends according to the latitude (and the season). When you
go northern, and this appears to apply to the whole Western continental
Europe as far as I understand, lunch time and dinner time seems to be
earlier, on a general basis.
Now Spain obviously have late lunch and dinner time, anyway. 3 pm seems
to me a good first guess in Summer (i.e. you can present yourself in any
restaurant at this time, you won't be fire out for *this* reason).
2:30 is a better guess in Winter time, by the way.


> (that is when the lunch-time TV news is broadcast), and all other daily
> activities are correspondingly "postponed",

This particularly affects the Summer, after lunch activities. Spaniers
in Summer (for reason related to the conjonction of sun and dry climate)
tend to have a looooong rest period between 12 o'clock and, say, 5-6.


> thus nullifying the effect of the far-advanced clock. This suggests
> the possibility of dividing the world into a few broad time zones,
> with schedules adjusted within them according to relative longitude.

I do not believe it will work, because of the transition points: the very
point for exceptions like Indiana and the like, apart form the willingness
to differentiate themselves from the Central, is that neither of the
bordering possibilities are the panacea. In Central Europe this is viewed
as a matter of unity _against_ the mosaic of different states with different
laws etc. Europe makes this changing, particularly here in France (Europe
is seen as the responsible for our ST/DST system, while in fact this is only
partialy true, and avoiding it will be seen by a number of people as a
victory against Brussels centralism).


Antoine