On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 20:02:03 +0100, Dr John Stockton
wrote:

JRS: In article , dated
Sat, 21 Aug 2004 10:27:07, seen in news:uk.transport.london, Peter
Sumner posted :

Any real pedant would know that in the vicinity of the zero meridian
we stopped using GMT - based on astronomical time in 1972 and switched
(after failing to agree the defining language for its TLA with the
French) to UTC - based on atomic time.

"We" does not include the UK, where legal time remains GMT-based, use of
UTC time-signals notwithstanding.

Do we agree that the civil time used in the UK is UTC and that
legislation has failed to keep up with this?

Presumably, therefore, you live in France, Spain (UTC-based, I think),
Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, or Togo. Or afloat. Or in Sanae.

I'll admit to being where my posting address paces me - in the UK

BTW, UTC is based on astronomical time; that is what Leap Seconds are
for. Only the scale of seconds is atomic-based.

Agreed, though for that reason I would say that UTC is based on an
atomic scale and corrected to astronomical time - like the NPL
http://www.npl.co.uk/time/time_scales.html#World

The correct TLAs for the times of almost all of the UK are GMT and BST.

Agree with BST, but not GMT. Referring to the time zone links from
your pages http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html#zone says
that the term should no longer be used and
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world_maps/time_zone_world_98.jpg
refers to the zero meridian time zone as UTC formerly GMT.

Fascinated by why you say almost all of the UK. Is there some part in
a different time zone?

How, in general, does UK transport deal with services operating across
and around 01:00 GMT on the last Sunday of March and of October?

A much more realistic question than asking how leap seconds are coped
with.
--
Peter Sumner