Re: Colonel Blimp's Armistice

From: Leo Enticknap [[email protected]]

Rebecca Bell-Metereau writes, apropos my speculation around the time
zone issue in the armistice scene in 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp':

"Editor's note:  Wow."

The following explanation may be judged off topic for this list, in which c=
ase don't post it, but just to put your mind at rest: no, I did not become =
somewhat of a geek about time zones and DST simply out of not having anythi=
ng better to do.  When I became engaged to an American but we were living a=
part two years ago, we experienced some confusion with UK-California phone =
calls in the spring and autumn, because the change to and from DST happened=
 on different weeks in the two zones.  There is a period of 1-3 weeks in th=
e spring when the gap expands from 8 hours to 9, and a similar one in the a=
utumn when it shrinks to 7.  And to make things even more complicated if yo=
u happen to live in south-east California or western Arizona, Arizona doesn=
't do DST at all, meaning that during the summer, CA and AZ are on the same=
 time, but in winter they're an hour apart.  This got me wondering why on E=
arth the changeover day isn't standardised worldwide (or the use of DST eve=
n nationwide, in the case of the US) - the disruption this causes in certai=
n industries (e.g. broadcasting/journalism and civil aviation) must literal=
ly cost millions.

So I did some reading around the subject, and soon discovered that time zon=
es in general, and Daylight Saving Time in particular, is a surprisingly co=
ntentious political issue.  For example, there are currently campaigns runn=
ing in Scotland to move the clocks forward to CET, and in Spain and Portuga=
l to move them back to WET.  The initial introduction of DST in the UK only=
 happened after an eight-year campaign: for more info, see David Prerau, 'S=
eize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of DST', New York, Thu=
nder's Mouth Press (2005).

So from that I guessed that the Blimp discrepancy might have something
to do with time zones, Googled accordingly, and came across the
information (from several sources), that the Germans imposed a different
time zone on many of their occupied territories during WWI, which was
promptly abandoned upon liberation.

Leo

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