WA votes no to daylight saving

It's official - daylight saving is dead in the water in Western Australia and there are plans afoot to bring back roster petrol stations.

WA, one hour and 57 years behind the rest of Australia. Would the last person to leave Perth please turn out the lights? Oh, that's right, they were never on...

Dear NO voters, that's okay, I'll be bringing the kids around when they wake up at 4.45am every day in summer and we'll have a nice play on your front lawn.

Who the f@#k needs sunlight that early anyway? All the selfish old farts pouring precious water on their gardens, or walking their arthritic dogs. Sports people? Those without kids and empty nesters?

All I wanted was a bit of time to get out of the house with the kids when I come home from work... maybe have a barbie, go to the beach, kick the footy. But no, you lot wouldn't have that. According to you all normal people should be eating dinner by 5.30pm and tucked up in bed with Fat Cat.

I'm mad as hell - the miserable, backwards thinking people of Perth would rather have the sun blazing in while most of us are either still in bed, or getting ready for work / school. More sunlight hours during the time of day when we have the least chance of actually using it... unless you're old, childless, or milking a cow.

Someone scoffed today that talk of the yes vote bringing about cultural change was ludicrous. I agreed. Indeed it would have been more an evolutionary change, akin to the time when the human race ceased being monkeys and ate our own faeces for fun.

Thanks for nothing folks and keep an eye out for me this summer - I'll be the one driving around honking his horn at the first signs of daylight making sure you're all awake to enjoy this most 'precious' time of the day.

In response to the NO daylight saving mob

Just thought this was worthy of its own post...

Hi Jo - in response to your arguments, non-CWA related of course:

Try living in a country where the sun goes down at 4.30pm. That justifies DST absolutely.
- I've lived in the UK, but still don't see why we can't enjoy DLS here? What, we should whip ourselves because we live in a country that's just too good for us? Are we not worthy?

1. DST definitely interferes with the biological clocks of children, making it harder to sleep, and harder to get up.
- I've got three aged from 2-9 and they all sleep better during DLS summer. The baby wakes up at 7am as opposed to 6am. The nine year old never wants to get up, regardless of the season.

2. By deferring the hottest part of the day until later, the biggest change I've noticed in my neighbourhood is the excessive use of air-conditioning.
- We're all outside enjoying the late summer sun until well after 7pm, so the aircon goes on later, if at all. If it's a hot night, it's hot regardless of when the sun's out! A lot depends on the 'coolth' factor in your home design and whether there's a seabreeze. The Freo Doctor doesn't care about the time, DLS or not.

3. Who wants a 38 degree day to last all night? I can't think of a worse torture.- As above, when it's hot, it's hot!!! Another hour of daylight at the end of the day hardly constitutes a whole night.

4. I had no trouble finding the beach before DST, why is it such a YES issue now?- Cause when you work until 6-6.30pm and it's already getting dark the beach isn't an option.

5. Going to a big concert at night, in daylight, is just plain wrong!- Christ, I wish I had the time to go to a concert... too busy playing with the aforementioned kids!!!

6. No golf courses cater for more daylight so why bother?-
I live across the road from one and there are still people thwacking away at 7.30pm-plus. Wish I had time to play golf though. Too busy with the, etc, etc :)

7. People are still watering their lawns at 6pm, wasting our precious water supply under the hot sun.-
Then those people should be shot. They are dick heads. Tell them to put their hose away and get up in the morning to do it. I think watering should be banned altogether.

Daylight saving zombies ATTACK!!!

Somebody's squeezed a few vials of Viagra into the tea urn down at Daylight Savings Zombie Central. Yes siree, there's a whiff of victory in the air and the cardigan brigade couldn't be more excited if Eoin Cameron was back on the electoral hustings.

It's been slim pickings this past week in the zombie hunt pack. Frank's done his best, but with Carps on the sidelines turning to fat and The Lazy Aussie running decoy for Barnett, he's pushing shit uphill with the proverbial toothpick.

Bento is hell bent on cutting the fiends down to size with his Ruger semi-auto with the hollow tip slugs Skink smuggled in from Taiwan, but the Bus Driver and his crazy partner Tea are providing safe passage in a steel plated ex-Transperth bus. Couldn't penetrate that sucker with a Zeliska 600 Nitro Express Revolver.

It's great to have new blood in Shazza come on-board to take on the hand-to-liver spot dotted hand-combat, but for every new body we gain, another falls by the wayside. The Outrage Cohen has been next to useless since he started mainlining that aqua-farmed squid from Chinese-Taipei. It was only a matter of time before the zombies commandeered the presses at The Post to turn out their JUST SAY NO propaganda, but at least the Stones Green Ginger-based Molotov that Poor Lisa lobbed through the window put a spanner in the works.

The regionals are where we're really copping it in the neck and although Rolly is making all the right noises, my fears are that he's working as a double agent. Word is he has plans to put Matt Birney under the wheels of his tractor and seed him with a GM-free canola crop.

The referendum is drawing ever closer. The excited chatter of false teeth and the snap of elasticated double-waisted pants is a drill boring through my skull, making passage for the savage rays that will surely exact their revenge when summer 09/10 rolls around.

As I wander the early morning beaches, taking out the kneecaps of those rendered incontinent at the giddy joy of banishing daylight saving to the dark bottom drawer where Sunday trading resides, my thoughts start to wander.

Lonely summer afternoons on the beach watching a feeble, febrile sun slink away into the Indian Ocean at 6.30pm. Riding back from Little Parakeet Bay on Rottnest Island asking no one in particular, 'Hey, who turned out the lights?'. Poking the snags on the backyard barbie in the half gloom wondering if they're going black, or if it's just the fading light. Sending down a beam ball to the number one son in the Floreat nets and realising too late that he can't see jack shit and is about to wear an incrediball on the chin.

But I guess that's okay, cause the zombies will march forth in the early morn like some remake of Wacko Jacko's Thiller video, boldly striding along to the beat of their own selfish drums as the rest of us consider block-out curtains to keep the baby from waking up at 4.30am.

They'll gather in excited clusters at suburban Chinese restaurants in the 6pm gloom, proferring wine coolers and competing with each other as to who goes to bed and gets out of bed the earliest. 'Water the lawn at 4am, tea on the table at 4.30pm and in bed with Graham Maybury by 6.30pm - that's the life Frank!"

I gather I'm not alone in the YES army, but I feel that our numbers are thin and the zombies are on the rise. Indeed, I think there will be people who vote NO simply because they feel that somehow the people in the eastern states are trying to get one over them. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

And then there's the crowd who say we already get more sunlight than the east, so we don't need daylight saving. Well, I say balls to that theory. Maybe we get more at 4.30am when it's about as much use as TOAB.

So I guess the question is, are you with me, or are you de-linting the woollen cardy and sharpening up the chopticks for a small night out with the zombie brigade?

Yes, or no?