I was wondering from manning the jumpseat of this place with Copago who is down under, how many time zones we represent here at FT?
I am in the European time zone, in France.

Pacific time zone here...same like California!
..but not nearly as warm!

Here in Central Florida we are in the Eastern time zone.

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: Vikan ]

Australian Eastern Summer Time here (at the moment) but we're pretty close to the border for the Central Summer Time which is half an hour behind.

Actually, we get our TV from 3 different timezones (in Summer) ... one channel from Queensland, one hour behind in summer, they don't do daylight saving), 1 from Alice Springs whcih is an hour and a half behind and two from my own zone. Gets a little confusing when the midday movie is on a 1pm

At present we're on Greenwich Mean Time in the UK. From the last weekend in March till the last weekend in October we change to Central European Time (i.e. we go forward one hour). But we don't like to think we share anything with the Continent, even for only half the year, so we call it British Summer Time.

I remember Bruyere once saying that it was unusual how Australia does the time zones in half hours ... don't other countries do it that way?

I don't know if there is anyone at FT, but Nepal is one hour and forty-five minutes behind Tibet. I believe they are the only country in the world with a 15 minute time zone.

Cheers

Birmingham Alabama here, Central time zone.

Copago....I understand in Australia, Perth does NOT change it's time by SEASON...like we do here...one hour forward in Spring and one hour back in Fall...to take advantage, I believe, of "sunlight" hours. Is that true? They are always the same. Is it true of all Australia? How many time zones do you have? I dunno?

Actually Perth is the only one I'm not sure about but I would say that the whole of Western Aust. doesn't change at all. The Northern Territory and Queensland don't either, being the more northern states they do alright ... so for summer .. say it's 12 in Sydney/Melbourne and Hobart it would be 11:30 in Adelaide (South Aust.) 11 in Brisbane (Queensland) 10:30 in Darwin and 9 in Perth. Winter it goes back to just the 3 different zones.

But wouldn't Canada be something similar? It's bigger than Aust. so you'd have to have a fair few spanning your country also, yeah? And I wonder about being so far north, do you have longer daylight saving than, say, the US?

That's interesting also about Nepal ... I never knew that.

your're right Copago .. we end up with 5 time zones in summer, for a population of 19 million .. it'd only happen downhere !

I think China has just one time zone, for the whole country - and Russia has daylight saving permanently, but still add another hour during their summers

New Brunswick Canada is the only place I think the half hour time zone exists, we were traveling through there once and I'm almost certain they used it.
ANy confirmation?

THere are several US states that don't switch. And when I was in Indiana some counties did and others didn't!
The worst was going for a flight out of Chicago from Indiana and juggling the two!
Arizona is one that never switches.

Like Florda, we are on Eastern Standard Time, and in the Spring we "Spring Forward. Fall Back." Which means clocks are set ahead one hour in Spring; back an hour in Fall.

We are five hours behind Derbyshire, England, if that helps put EST in prespective.

Florida covers two time zones. Here in central Florida and most of the state we are on Eastern Time (Standard and Daylight Saving). The western panhandle section of the state is on Central Time ( Standard and Daylight Savings).This caused a big fuss, during the last presidential election, when the networks called the state before the polls closed in the western portion of the state.
That was the begining of the election problems down here, long before we heard of hanging chads.

Oh Bruyere! I just *wuv* your reference at the beginning of this thread to 'the European timezone' - as if there were only one. Like Tabby I live in the Greenwich Mean Time(zone), aka as West European Time and now - wow! - it's even called the 'Universal Time Co-ordinate'.

As for half-hour timezones, India also has 'em and, I believe, Afghanistan too - as well as the countries already mentioned. The penalties for this are getting quite dire: areas with half-hour and, perish the thought! - even smaller differences, are increasingly treated as outside the Universal Time system ... Btw, didn't the French have Paris Time throughout France until 1912?

[ 02-27-2002: Message edited by: bloomsby ]

Bloomsby! I'll start calling it European time once you switch over to the Euro dear!
It is rather difficult to know. And the UK switches at a different date than the "Continent". So consequently I took a plane once at 1 and arrived at 1 pm.
This was because there is a brief time at which you've switched and we haven't!
I also became aware of the problem when I'd call the UK for work and get someone very early though we'd switched already.

I think you're right about the Paris time, now why doesn't that surprise me?
I'll check on my astrology ephemeris when I get a chance.
I also know that the tip of Brittany is closer to your time zone and in astrological calculations is a little odd.
I had a birth to calculate at Carnac, which qualifies for the ley lines discussed down in the mystery section and it was very odd.

Heather, I think that you will find that the UK now switches times at the same times as we in 'Europe' do. I phone my mother in the UK weekly, so I keep track of these things!
Up until a few years ago the 'fall back' in the autumn was about a month different, spring was the same. Now (unless it has changed again) UK & Europe (Spain anyway) make the changes on the same weekends in both spring and autumn.
Portugal, by the way, is on the same time as the UK (which makes sense, but must be confusing for people on the Spain-Portugal border).
The half-hour time zone in Canada is (or was when I lived there) for Newfoundland. CBC always used to announce programmes as being on at '9 o'clock, 9:30 in Newfoundland'.
Do they still?
A friend here who grew up in Kenya was explaining 'African time' to me the other day. One o'clock is an hour after sunrise and so on, and the date also changes at sunrise! How do you think you'd cope with that system, eh?

That's good news! This would have been about 15 years ago.
I think the African time reminds me of Orpheus singing to make the sun come up..or have I botched it up again.

I don't care (well I do, actually)...anyway...

I don't care which time zone you're in...it was a bummer that here in MY time zone....FunTrivia was "off the air" all day Saturday and most of Sunday!

I was cranky, but I DID say hi to the kids....and did some laundry...geez...........

It was rough wasn't it?
I'm sure that as it happened on a weekend, instead of world productivity suddenly rising unexpectedly causing great concern amongst world leaders, that couples all over the globe were acting irritably or else saying "you feeling ok? You cleaned out the garage!"

Sorry to correct you Bruyere but it is Newfoundland not New Brunswick that has a half hour time zone. I was born in N.B. so I am sure of this.

Pacific Time Zone