Berlin Time and Time Again

Part of this posting is copied from a comment I left on the original 'Berlin Time' thread. This is because I think it demonstrates the absence of thought among many of the enthusiasts for setting this country's clocks as if it were 600 miles further east than it actually is.

Someone hiding behind the name 'Richard B' asks: 'Why Berlin time and not Paris or Madrid hmmmm I wonder?'
Well, Mr 'B', basically because it *is* Berlin time, and not Madrid or Paris Time. Hmmmmmmm? Did he wonder much?

Get out your atlas and observe that the map is marked with lines of longitude, spreading eastwards and westwards form the zero meridian at Greenwich. They arrive at the opposite of Greenwich in the far east of Siberia, which is 180 degrees east and west (the International Date Line, which does not exactly follow the 180 degree meridian, is to be found here).

The numbering of these lines is arbitrary. But the absolutes which they measure are based upon the rotation of the earth, and are not arbitrary but real. It really is lighter earlier in Berlin than it is here, in the morning.

In theory the zero meridian could go through anywhere. But Greenwich was chosen at the International Meridian Conference in Washington in 1884.

What is not arbitrary is that 15 degrees of longitude represents the distance between two points, where the sun is at its zenith an hour apart. Thus. The sun is at its zenith an hour earlier on the 15 degree east Meridian (close to Berlin) than it is at Greenwich.

And lo, the 15 degree east meridian runs about 60 miles east of Berlin. (Trebnje in Slovenia is exactly upon it, but Berlin is the major city in Europe closest to it, and also the political origin of Central European Time, dating back to the Kaiser but spread, by conquest or pressure, ever since.)

Whereas Paris is only about two degrees east of Greenwich (and ought really to be on GMT), and Madrid is about three degrees *west* of Greenwich, and would certainly be better suited to London than Berlin time - though being further south is not so badly affected by it.

I call it Berlin time because it is Berlin time.

Accusations of 'xenophobia' should only be made, I think, by people who know what they're talking about and have evidence to back their charges. I love Germany, and admire much about it, and often go on holiday there. I just don't see why I should live on German time when I am in England, hundreds of miles to the West.

Germans, likewise, see no virtue in living on Minsk time (the equivalent, for them, of doing what is proposed for us). Why should they? It is out of tune with their lives, as Berlin time would be with ours.

The imposition of someone else's time on a country is a classic Who Whom? question. It is done for the convenience of the one which imposes, and to emphasise the subject state of the one on which it is imposed, hence France's abject continued acceptance of a time zone first imposed on it by conquest, now by calls for 'European Unity'.

Think these symbolic measures are not of importance to the EU? Why then the EU flag on all British embassies, the EU stars on EU-supported projects, the EU blue tag on numberplates, etc?

The EU, a device for imposing German domination over Europe by peaceful means, often advances its agenda under cover, as was evidenced by the Jack de Manio affair and the Hughie Greene story in this week's MoS.

These both provide evidence that the EU cause has promoted itself by backstairs lobbying, without its own involvement being evident. This has happened in the past, and could well be happening now. I might add that one of the principal supporters of Lord Mountgarret's 1994 'Central European Time Bill', which failed in the Lords, was Lord (Roy) Jenkins, the arch-Europhile. In the debate (Hansard, 11th January 1994, House of Lords) both he and Lord Mountgarret denied any EU element in their cause, before anyone accused them of having such a cause. I wonder why it is that there have been so many such Bills, under so many different names, in the past 20 years. The current attempt is the seventh.

I might add that Lord Jenkins was the inventor of the famous 1968-71 experiment, during which we were on Berlin Time all winter (but not in the Summer), and during which road deaths in Great Britain actually rose (GB figures, source National Statistics).

1968: 6,810
1969: 7,365
1970: 7,499
1971: 7,699
1972: 7,763

And this in spite of speed limits and breathalysers, which as I said were introduced at the same time (not exactly the same time, but close enough for them to be having a measurable effect).

Since lower road casualties are such a keystone of the 'Darker Later' campaign (as it could equally well be called), this is quite interesting.

There is much else to add on this argument. I only urge those who have not already expressed their disquiet at this unpleasant scheme to write, e-mail or text.

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