Re: CHAT: Timezones was The English/French counting system

At 12:32 16/09/03, John Cowan wrote:

>The International Meridian Conference of 1884 was called at the
>instance of the U.S. and held in Washington: delegates were sent by
>Austria-Hungary, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany,
>Great Britain, Guatemala, Hawaii (then independent), Italy, Japan,
>Liberia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Russia, (El) Salvador,
>San Domingo (i.e. the Dominican Republic), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
>Turkey, the U.S., and Venezuela.
Etc.

Oops, clearly (a) my source was inaccurate and (b) some details had slipped
my memory.  Oh well, the basic point remained.

I agree about the problem of people (and not just Brits - I find the
problem is worse with Americans talking about British time) using 'GMT' to
mean British time whether or not it includes summer time.  I still think
the whole summer time thing is an unnessessary mess.  I really can't see
why it's any simpler than legislating that everything must run an hour
later in the summer, even assuming that one wants legislation about such
things.

I still think that everyone using GMT is simplest.  Failing that, yes,
making sure everyone knows their offset will do (or multiple offsets if
there is summer time or even double summer time, poor dears).  But it's my
experience that people don't learn these, certainly not the summer time
offsets.

Ian