Sunny and warm start to the day. Well, by noon 17 in the shade but 43 in the direct sun.
Noon that is new (summer) time. North America changes time two weeks earlier than the rest of the world for reasons that are unclear, though inclined to blame American exceptionalism, in conjunction with Canadian little brother syndrome. Earlier that is than the rest of the world that still makes the change. Quite a few countries are making noises about discontinuing the change, which was originally a temporary measure introduced during the first World War. Although wasn’t that also true of income tax? Well, more or less in Canada, although not really in UK and US unless you’re talking Napoleonic and Civil wars, and then not permanently left in place.
But as it stands there are significant anomalies in this part of the world, with time zone lines paralleling lines of longitude roughly if at all. And this map ignoring much political reality. Turkey, for example, has one time zone when it might logically have had two, though not by the logic of Ankara. China bends zones even more to suit political reality, with the whole country, which is nearly as wide as continental US on Beijing time, when there ought, politics aside, to be at least three and arguably five time zones there.
Turkey has ceased to make the change from summer time as of autumn 2016, making permanent what had been daylight savings, although North Cyprus, which is on the same time as the Republic of Cyprus, does change like the South. Though this was not always the case. In 2016 when Turkey chose to abandon the time change TRNC did likewise initially. Remember this clearly because we were staying in the South in November of that year and found ourselves arriving for a dental appointment in the North an hour late. Fehmi’s assistant had apparently been puzzled and said to him but the English are never late. However, TRNC has returned to the dual system.
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