Please may I mess with your mind?

[Bold Rover]

2 minutes ago, th1stleandr0se said:

I am some age.  Definitely one of the oldest on here.

And, really, I should be 11 days older.

 

On a serious note though, Scotland seems to have changed calendars about 150 years before England and the Union of the Parliaments took place during that time, which means that some events are recorded as different dates by the two countries.  Add to that the fact that the year number only changed on the 5th of April, not January 1st, and you have a really confusing scenario for anyone looking at the dates of old documents from that period.

Might have helped with tax matters.

[th1stleandr0se]

7 minutes ago, Bold Rover said:

Might have helped with tax matters.

That's actually the reason for the tax date (with an adjustment of a day for some reason or another).

[lichtgilphead]

57 minutes ago, th1stleandr0se said:

That's actually the reason for the tax date (with an adjustment of a day for some reason or another).

Originally New Year's Day was on 25th March. In order to ensure no loss of tax revenue, the Treasury decided that the taxation year which started on 25th March 1752 would be of the usual length (365 days) and would end on 4th April, the following tax year beginning on 5th April.

The extra adjustment was because 1800 was a leap year in the Julian system but not in the Gregorian system.

[th1stleandr0se]

30 minutes ago, lichtgilphead said:

Originally New Year's Day was on 25th March. In order to ensure no loss of tax revenue, the Treasury decided that the taxation year which started on 25th March 1752 would be of the usual length (365 days) and would end on 4th April, the following tax year beginning on 5th April.

The extra adjustment was because 1800 was a leap year in the Julian system but not in the Gregorian system.

Any idea why 25th March was chosen to be New Year's Day?  I can't think of any logical reason for it.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

4 minutes ago, th1stleandr0se said:

Any idea why 25th March was chosen to be New Year's Day?  I can't think of any logical reason for it.

This doesn't answer your question but gives insight to the change of dates.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/03/22/march-happy-colonial-new-year/L0MrkQc47SiUu1OHVJt1lI/story.html

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

2 minutes ago, Zen Archer said:

This doesn't answer your question but gives insight to the change of dates.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/03/22/march-happy-colonial-new-year/L0MrkQc47SiUu1OHVJt1lI/story.html

Lady Day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day

[lichtgilphead]

17 minutes ago, th1stleandr0se said:

Any idea why 25th March was chosen to be New Year's Day?  I can't think of any logical reason for it.

In England, the "quarter days" were as follows:

Lady Day (25 March)
Midsummer Day (24 June)
Michaelmas (29 September)
Christmas (25 December)

They were the four dates in each year on which servants were hired, school terms started, and rents were due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close to the two solstices and two equinoxes.

As an aside, "April Fool" may also derive from changing the start of the year from April to January. One suggestion is that the people who celebrated the New Year on Jan 1st referred to those that persisted with celebrating the "Old New Year" as April Fools (this shouldn't be confused with those that still celebrate the Julian New Year on 12th January)

[coprolite]

On 06/03/2018 at 21:31, Fullerene said:

Apparently it is most of them.  Must be incredibly difficult to organize a birthday party and somebody told me it gets lots of snow in the winter time.

you have been misled. It hardly ever snows in Antarctica.

Timezones are a social construct invented by the victorian proto nazis to oppress the working classes. 

[Fullerene]

1 minute ago, coprolite said:

you have been misled. It hardly ever snows in Antarctica.

Timezones are a social construct invented by the victorian proto nazis to oppress the working classes. 

So if you are working class and don't want to be oppressed then  you should avoid Antarctica.  Makes sense I guess.

[coprolite]

44 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

So if you are working class and don't want to be oppressed then  you should avoid Antarctica.  Makes sense I guess.

Exactly. Lidl won't get permission to build a store there, which says it all.

[Fullerene]

21 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Exactly. Lidl won't get permission to build a store there, which says it all.

So Iceland have it all sown up, I guess!

[Mark Connolly]

10 hours ago, th1stleandr0se said:

I am some age.  Definitely one of the oldest on here.

And, really, I should be 11 days older.

 

On a serious note though, Scotland seems to have changed calendars about 150 years before England and the Union of the Parliaments took place during that time, which means that some events are recorded as different dates by the two countries.  Add to that the fact that the year number only changed on the 5th of April, not January 1st, and you have a really confusing scenario for anyone looking at the dates of old documents from that period.

So you're saying it makes that c**t David Starkey's life more difficult?

Pleasing.

[RossDee01]

Not quite to the same extreme, but after leaving school I played college golf in America. My college was in Tennessee and the tournament we were playing that week was in Alabama. Only about a 4 hour drive. We were playing a practice round on the day we travelled and our tee time was 1.30. We were still travelling to the golf course on the bus at 1.40 yet made it to the course on time for our 1.30 tee time.