Mecca Time

This is an interesting one from the BBC: Muslim call to adopt Mecca time.

A conference in Qatar is arguing that Mecca has more of a claim to be the standard by which international time is set than jolly old England. It is in alignment with magnetic north and other undisclosed science forms the basis of their assertion.

GMT is of course a potent reminder of the good old days when Britain ruled the waves and a lot besides. This is not the first time it has been challenged. For many years Paris contested the honour bestowed on London. When they did accept the inevitable, they called it 'Paris Mean Time minus nine minutes, x seconds'. By strange coincidence Mecca time is the 'brainchild' of a French Muslim.

I'm not pushed about any change unless it gives me personally a couple of hours in a day more than everyone else so that I can catch up on life.

In another time-related topic, the former president of Turmenistan's changes to the calendar have been revoked. Renowned for his eccentric personality cult, the president had named various months after himself, his mother and others.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/070889CB-6450-44C3-AE4A-523E71E5552D.htm

Our current names for months and days are pagan - should suit the Auditor

I'm partial to the French Revolutionary Calendar.

From the beginning of the French Revolution (14 July 1789) the years of freedom were counted, mostly alongside the Gregorian year. On 22 September 1792, this era was replaced by the years of the republic, the first of which was the Gregorian year 1792. The second year of the republic was begun on 1 January 1793. But, the radical change in the French state was to be expressed by means of a new calendar, which led to the elaboration of a new calendar wholly independent of the Gregorian calendar.

On 5 October 1793, the French government decided to introduce the Revolutionary calendar. The era of this calendar was 22 September 1792, Gregorian. In France, a decimal system of units was created, and time should be measured in decimal units, too. Therefore, a year was divided into twelve months of three decades each. The remaining 5 or, in leap years 6 days, called jours complémentaires and declared feast days, were being placed at the end of the year. Days and months simply were to be numbered, which would have led to days like "the seventh day of the first month of the fifth year of the republic".

There was no fixed leap year pattern, but the year was begun with the day of the autumnal equinox, which was determined by observation at the location Paris. The period from one leap year to the succeeding leap year was called franciade.

Before putting the calendar in effect, a commission was given the task of checking it. The numbering of days and months was criticized, and the poet Fabre d'Eglantine created poetic names for the months according to the season in which they occur.

No. Name Meaning
1 Vendémiaire vintage month
2 Brumaire fog month
3 Frimaire sleet month
4 Nivôse snow month
5 Pluviôse rain month
6 Ventôse wind month
7 Germinal seed month
8 Floréal blossom month
9 Prairial pasture month
10 Messidor harvest month
11 Thermidor heat month
12 Fructidor fruit month
13 Sansculottides additional days

Within a decade the days were given names with respect to their position.

No. Name
1 primidi
2 duodi
3 tridi
4 quartidi
5 quintidi
6 sextidi
7 septidi
8 octidi
9 nonidi
10 décadi

This was abolished in 1806 when France reverted to the Gregorian calendar.

I'm rather fond of the French Revolutionary Calendar too, if only use it as a stick to poke secularists with. It's a good example of a perfectly good system (the Gregorian one) being scuppered because of its religious basis (yeah, 'cos everyone immediately assosiated March with the god) and replaced with a ridiculous system based on the decimal system and, oh God, nature. If they'd left it at changing the names that would have been fine. Instead they had to go around introducing ten day weeks and other clumsy arrangements. There's a good reason they reverted back to the Gregorian calendar, that's all I'm saying.

Even better was their attempt to introduce ten hour days, with an hour lasting a hundred minutes and a minute lasting a hundred seconds. It didn't catch on either.