Fic Rush: the two-day ficathon

I am not going on the business trip, so I can take Sunday! In fact, I can take 3 pm GMT all the way through to 10 pm GMT on Sunday if that's easier than trading off with someone else in the middle.

I'm busy Saturday night unfortunately, and I'm busy Sunday night too, but ending at 10 pm GMT on Sunday is perfect for me.

As for the rest of you, take a shift! It's lots of fun, I promise. Besides, it's almost

lolmac's birthday, and if you take a shift, you can keep mentioning that in the hourly posts.*

*Not that I would ever do that, of course. Oh my no.

From:

lolmac

Yay! I hope you aren't disappointed not to be going on that business trip, because I for one am delighted that we get to have you here instead.

Do I get alien fish for my birthday?

From:

No, not really disappointed. You see, the thing about weekend business trips is, you have to work on the weekend. It also would've been very quick, so I wouldn't have gotten to play tourist. So all in all, it's a good thing I'm not going.

Besides, now I get to fic_rush! Yay!

I'll see what I can do about the alien fish. Are you sure you don't want poisoned confetti instead? I think that might be a lot easier to arrange . . . ; )

From:

lolmac

I think we should save the poisoned confetti to use on the singing Sontarans.

From:

Um, what? The whole of the UK is on the same time zone - it's actually BST (British Summer Time aka Daylight Savings) now, up until the end of the month. So I'm confused as to what distinction you think you're drawing between GMT and London time??

From:

lolmac

The UK is not on GMT when it's on BST. I didn't know that last time around, and so Round 10 actually ran for 49 hours.

From:

LOL Oh, okay - you didn't allow for daylight savings. However, London time is the same as the time everywhere in the UK - you just have to remember to allow for BST being an hour ahead.

From:

What

lolmac said above. As GMT doesn't change for BST, it is not actually equivalent to the time in Greenwich at the moment. Although when do you guys shift back?

From:

lolmac

They change back on the 31st. We don't revert until November 7th. Sheesh.

It must be very odd working in Greenwich during the summer, when the local time is not the same as Greenwich Mean Time . . .

From:

There is something seriously wrong about Daylight Savings Time going past Halloween. How are the kids these days supposed to trick-or-treat when it's still light outside?

By the way, fic_rush is so educational, because I totally didn't know about the BST thing either until someone asked why fic_rush had started early last round. I kind of liked the extra bonus hour, though. : )

From:

Why would it be odd? Everyone knows it's BST - it's not like it's a secret!! We all change our clocks, putting them an hour forward at the end of March, and then an hour back on the last Sunday in October.

It's no different or more confusing than the US having several different time zones (less so, I'd say, since it's a standard across the country).

From:

lolmac

Well, it's about 5600 kilometers from one side of the US to the other, so if we didn't have multiple time zones, the sun would rise and set at some pretty weird times of day in some locations.

And that's just going straight across, not corner to corner. It's about the same distance from Seattle to Maine as it is from Cornwall to Kazakhstan.

China's all one time zone, of course, but the Chinese government isn't exactly concerned about the comfort of the average citizen in an outlying region.

From:

Yes I know the US is huge - I'm not disputing the relevance of needing differing time zones in the US. I'm just confused as to why you think it'd be confusing to people working in Greenwich during the summer...

Maybe my confusion stems from being a Brit and it all being perfectly normal and non-confusing to me...

From:

lolmac

Actually, I was making a joke.

From:

Oh, sorry my sense of humour's seriously deficient after a shittier than usual week at work and being woken up at 4am by the fire alarm 'cos some moron was burning toast at that hour.

From:

GMT is in abeyance during BST - I thought everyone knew that?!

From:

lolmac

GMT continues to be GMT; it's an international standard. Check the greenwichmeantime.com website.

What I didn't know was that the UK sticks with Daylight Savings Time until this late in the year. I think it's idiotic of our Congress here in the US to drag it out this long, so I didn't assume that anyone else's governing bodies were equally dim-witted.

Long story short, I started last month's round an hour early, and this month's round will start on time.

From:

Yes I *know* GMT is the international standard and it's relevant to the rest of the world during March - October - but it's NOT to us!!

There's nothing at all dim witted about maintaining BST from March to October - we're on a tiny island in the North Atlantic Ocean and by having BST it means the Scots don't have to work in the dark/burn lights half the day as well as at night just so they can see!

From:

You can Google "current time GMT" to check the difference. It's the fastest way.

From:

I don't need to - I KNOW! I live in England. I just didn't know you guys didn't know the difference between BST and GMT. Thought it was widely known even to non-Brits. After all, Americans have Daylight Savings.

From:

Oh okay, sorry. I must have read your post the other way around or something. Someone else from England showed up here during BST once and expected everything to be an hour off because of it, so I thought maybe it was a common confusion, like how so many people over here don't know their GMT offsets.

From:

Well I just assumed you'd be starting an hour different because we're on BST not GMT at the moment.

From:

For me, it wasn't that I didn't know of BST, but that I didn't know that BST runs from March to October. Not only does Daylight Savings change on different dates than British Summer Time does, but we've had our Daylight Savings dates messed around with in the recent past. So I'm still struggling to remember when our own clocks change right now. It sounds like BST is pretty stable and well-known over there, which is great, but over here it's very common to have the "what, the clocks are changing this weekend?" conversation.

So don't blame the Americans for being clueless . . . sometimes we just are, sorry.

From:

Well sometimes Brits don't remember the exact date, so those conversations aren't unusual here either. I just happen to remember that it's the last Sunday in October and March. But then I've got a head stuffed full of information that *some* people would consider trivia.

(Eg I was watching the latest episode of Law & Order: UK this morning and there's the revelation that someone suffered a spiral fracture in their arm - and I immediately said "That was no ordinary accident because you only get spiral fractures from someone twisting the arm with great force to break it." Because that's the kind of weird stuff I know.)

From:

thisbluespirit

Yeah, it always changes in October and March, but you ould think it didn't the amount of people who either: a) don't know it's changing, b) can't remember which way it's changing or c) forget and arrive places an hour late or early. (The Sunday the clocks go back and forward is always one where you wait to see who'll turn up at a strange time in church...)

It is one of those things you get so used to, you forget it's relatively local, as it were.

From:

I eventually notice that my computer clock doesn't match my other ones, and then I fix them all. Usually I'll get a bit of an advance warning when I overhear someone else talking about it (usually all conversations include one person who can't remember "spring forward fall back"). I rarely catch the exact date.

I don't even know about this recent screwing around we're meant to have gone through. I wouldn't notice a change. Time changes never followed any logic to begin with.

From:

isdon-isgood9.livejournal.com

Since I'm awake from midnight to 8 am (its about 10 am til 6pm here) I can take that shift if you like : )

From:

lolmac

It would be great if you can take at least part of that shift!

I'm currently waiting to find out if one of the usual mods is going to be available at all this weekend. How late into Sunday evening can you go, if the gap trends in that direction?

From:

isdon-isgood9.livejournal.com

I can probably go for another 4 hours after that, five if you desperately need it but I have to be up at 6:30 the next morning to get to school on time so I don't think I can push it any further than that. Hope that helps some : )

From:

lolmac

You bet! I'll have to get back to you about exact shifts after I've heard from one last person. Thank you!

From:

I didn't answer your PM about this because I was too busy ignoring Livejournal. Sorry.

The good news is, I have almost nothing important to do this weekend! The only time I'll be gone is 4pm to 9pm GMT Sunday. Otherwise, I can do whatever hours still need covering. Also the first hour(s), if you still want me to do that. Just let me know when. I'll be around a couple hours before fic_rush starts, so if I don't see and reply to you sooner, I should at least get back to you by then.

From:

lolmac

Woohoo!!

Definitely, please do the first two hours -- launch the ship in style!

I'm waiting to hear back from lullabymoon to make sure she's able to do her usual Sunday shift; if not, there will be another hole to fill, probably with Don's help.

From: