[LEAPSECS] Pedagogy & Greenwich

[Ian Batten]

On 10 Feb 2014, at 18:42, Gerard Ashton <ashtongj at comcast.net> wrote:



> in about three years. At such time, any correct attempt to explain what GMT

> means, when used as a synonym for UTC, should mention it has nothing to do

> with Greenwich.


Easy: redefine Greenwich.

Estate agents have already made most of Stoke Newington into Islington, Swiss Cottage into
Hampstead, and large parts of Brixton and Streatham are quietly rebranded as Dulwich;
I can't imagine estate agents in Woolwich would be unhappy about being able to start claiming houses
were in Greenwich instead!   London districts have fairly fluid boundaries anyway, and the
constituency, ward and postal districts are often subtly different; aside from assigning people
to wards for local (and potentially national) elections, they're not of much interest to anyone
other than estate agents.  Even the gangs use postcodes these days.   The only really significant
boundaries are though between local councils: London is a patchwork of distinct local governments
(hence why the two largest in the UK, and indeed Europe, are Birmingham and Manchester, 
which have single councils) and they set different business rates and council taxes.

British compromise at its finest!


> The easternmost point of the London district of Greenwich is a the

> intersection of two roads, Maze Hill and Charlton Way. The coordinates are

> 51° 28.509' N, 0° 0.602' E


I'm not sure what you're using as a definition of "district". SE2 0AT is in the 
Royal Borough of Greenwich, and is 51° 28' 57.8442"N, 0° 7' 15.0053"E.  
There are places slightly east of there that are also in the Borough.  Seven minutes
of an arc gives over 100s of shift before the zero leaves Greenwich, yes?  So
about sixty years?

ian