CC MEMO -- Fall Back

"Winter time" will begin in Europe and the USA tonight when the clocks will be set back one hour.

In the USA, it happens time zone by time zone as 02:00 (local time) becomes 01:00. In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.

You would think that the Americans and Europeans could at least agree how to "fall back." But, no, and they can't even call it the same thing: "Summer Time" in Europe and "Daylight Saving Time" in the USA.

At least the day the clocks fall back is the same, unlike the Spring -- the States will go back on "DST" on 2 April 2006 and Europe on 26 March.

And, LOL, beginning in 2007 both the spring forward and fall back dates are different in Europe and the USA, not to mention when the New Zealand changes in the opposite direction.

For the record, New Zealand Daylight Saving for southern summer of 2005-2006 began on Sunday 2nd October 2005 and ends on Sunday 19th March 2006. Daylight Saving always begins and ends at 02:00 NZST.

Trivial pursuit: In the USA the expression "daylight savings time" (with the extra "s") is a common alternate form but is not considered to be proper English because "saving" is used here as a verbal adjective describing a single type of activity. For more about DST, or Summertime, than you probably would ever care to know, click here.