Winding back the clocks

Spanish MPs are to consider changing time zones by an hour after a report said this would improve eating, sleeping, and working habits. The document by a parliamentary commission said that "Spain for more than 71 years has not been in the correct time zone". In 1942, the Spanish dictator General Franco moved Spain onto Central European Time to follow Nazi Germany. The report says Spain should be in the same time zone as the UK, Ireland, and Portugal. Spain - on the western edge of Europe - is currently one hour ahead of GMT during the winter and two hours ahead in the summer. "We sleep almost an hour less than the World Health Organization recommends," the commission said. "All this has a negative effect on productivity, absenteeism, stress, accidents, and school drop-out rates." It said that following the "wrong clock" explained why Spaniards tended to eat, leave work, and go to bed later than their European neighbours. If they want to shift everyone back an hour, that's fine. But what isn't fine, however, is that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said a Russian law banning "homosexual propaganda among minors" does not breach the Olympic charter. That is bollocks. Rights campaigners said the IOC "had abandoned the gay community", and they were right in saying those things. Russia, as Winter Olympic host, has come under criticism over the legislation - passed in June - which forbids "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors". Gay athletes and visitors to the games have voiced concern that the laws may be used against them.