It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the UK follows the EU - I can imagine the government retaining the current system in order to further distinguish themselves from ‘Europe’. Of course Portugal and Ireland are currently in the same time zone as the UK. but maybe in future that will only be the case for half the year.
Interesting that the US mainland (which has five time zones) has just scrapped daylight saving time.
By contrast S Africa, which is quite a large country, only has one and for historical reasons, it’s based on Cape Town (in the far west) as a result where I lived on the Eastern Cape (Indian Ocean side of the country) in summer many people were up by four am and out walking their dogs by five in the morning.
However, on the plus side, I could get so much writing done before going into my office at 8.30.
There’s a wonderful book on the origin of time zones and pre-WWI notions of time and space - Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918. One of the many reasons that I recommmend this book is that although it was written forty years ago, the author’s historical analyses remain very sound. Also there are many lovely bits of historical trivia, such as how the French initially refused to recognise the Greenwich Meridian predictably arguing that the Prime Meridian should instead run through Paris.
I bought a new hardback copy for £1 in a university bookshop sale nearly twenty years ago and assumed it would be currently available s/h for £/$1, but unfortuately not so. Nevertheless,it remains a good read if you’re interested in the ideas that shaped the modern world.
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The clock on our village church has been ten minutes slow for well over a year now, which I suppose may be due to our being over an hours drive west of the line of the Greenwich Meridian. 
My kitchen clock is radio-controlled, and so is my wristwatch, and the time is corrected daily to atomic time, at midnight, including adjusting for daylight saving. They are battery-powered and are such good boys!
Technology always amazes me!
In the book I mentioned above the author describes how after series of horrible accidents mid C19th French railways switched from various local times to Paris time. Perhaps your church clock predates the switch and they haven’t yet got round to adopting the ‘new’ system.
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I sleep soundly knowing my radio signal controlled clocks adjust themselves. Thats just tech, cannot believe in the 21st century that non resettings things exist except for maybe a family heirloom clock or two.
I sleep soundly knowing it takes 5 min to change things twice a year, it’s not the end of the world having to do it and I am not throwing something away just to buy another that changes itself and it’s better for the planet 
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Only changed to radio after the original units failed, not buy new clocks, better for the planet and my wallet. 
Is this spring the last time?
Yes, the same situation used to be the case with UK railways. In fact, to this day, the large clock on the front of the Corn Exchange Building in Bristol has two minute hands to indicate both London and Bristol time.
ah! glad you explained that. Without your comment, I would have said it’s the time the alarm goes off 
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So are we all on the same time right now? Just after 10 am here now.
That will make crossing easier.
11:12 here… according to my computer… but my brain isn’t on the same time… not yet 
Not sure if it’s still the case (bit out of touch with the UK now) but there always used to be a brief period in the middle of the night when the UK and France were on the same time, because the UK put its clocks forward at midnight and France at 2am. Otherwise, for this year anyway, the same hour difference remains.
I’m pretty certain the magic time has always been 3 am (that is forwards the jump is from 01:59:59 to 03:00:00 and backwards the jump is from 02:59:59 to 02:00:00).
However, there was a point where the UK had not synchronised with the EU as to what date to use, so if the French put clocks back from CEST to CET a week before the Brits went from BST to GMT the wall clock time would be the same in both countries.
Edit: OK, memory failure, it’s actually 1am → 2am and vice versa
Corona
2d
I sleep soundly knowing my radio signal controlled clocks adjust themselves.
Except that the sigma scientific alarm clock that we bought over from the Uk with us refuses to change to French time. Tried everything and it stubbornly insists on returning to GMT.
There must be something about scientific alarm clocks! We have exactly the same. We’ve done everything possible to try and persuade it to change to French time since moving here, but it simply won’t have it, and sticks rigidly to UK time, spring and autumn… threats to return it to the UK are dismissed as empty threats…
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we had the same problem - in the end we gave up and DID return it to the UK with our son and family for them to use… bleeding English
