BST -> GMT

The clocks went back an hour during the wee hours of Sunday morning, releasing us from the promise of the long golden evenings of British Summer Time and plunging us into the dark, cold, wintry Greenwich Meantime. This, I’ve been told since I was old enough to stand up straight and look my mother squarely in the kneecap, entitles me to an extra hour’s sleep. Of course what no one mentions is that this conferring of an additional sixty minutes of slumber comes with several conditions attached. At the very least it requires that:

a) you remember to put all the clocks in the house back just before you go to bed and don’t lie awake reading for an hour longer because every time you glance up it seems a bit too early to put the light out

b) your own body clock remembering that you are permitted this extra hour’s doze

c) your children’s body clocks understanding that they are supposed to stay in bed for a further hour and not wake you up early anyway

Yet despite all evidence to the contrary that there is, in fact, any truth in the myth of a further 3,600 seconds of precious sleep during the only 25-hour day of the year, we still tell our children that this valuable commodity will be bestowed upon them.

Unfortunately it is said out of desperation rather than real belief on our part.