The English - steeped in ancient tradition so that even in 2010 it can feel like you are living in 1752!
One thing that I found annoying when we first started out here in Britain was pulling in to a giant Tesco or Sainsbury with a big Open 24 Hours sign out the front on a Sunday afternoon to do some shopping. We would walk up to the doors at say 4.15pm only to see a sign hanging - "Closed due to Sunday trading restrictions".
By law shops may only trade for 6 hours between the times of 10am & 6pm - most choose to trade between 10am & 4pm, as such a defacto time has been set for 10 - 4 to be the Sunday trading hours.
Like most Western countries, this was born from the old Christian "thou shalt not work on a Sunday because you must go to church" rules. But in a modern, multicultural society like the UK isn't that a bit old and out of touch?
Reading this article on Wikipedia it states that Sunday shopping wasn't even permissible at all until 1994! So much for a modern, market driven economy.
I don't go to church and I feel that if I want to do my grocery shopping at 5pm on a Sunday and that the grocery store wants to be open at 5pm on a Sunday then we should have the right to do so.
At least in Australia when Woolies or Coles have a sign that says `Open until 10pm everyday' it is actually open until 10pm - yes people, even on a Sunday!
The other one I find particularly odd is the fact that the tax year begins on the 6th April and ends on the 5th April !? What is that about.
Not in tune with a calendar year - hey why even bother and make it tune with a calendar month?
Imagine doing your tax returns and needing to calculate interest paid, monthly statements won't help - you need a daily breakdown for the month of April.
Apparently it all has to do with the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. It all boils down to the fact that the rest of Europe changed to the more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582 and England not until 1752. This brought all the dates out of alignment. When the treasury wanted to change the dates to bring everything into alignment the landlords who thought they would miss out on 11 days worth income and banks who thought they would miss out on interest payments rebelled against it and stuck to their own time frames and bugger the rest of the population.
So 250 years later we still abide by the same rules applied by a small section section of society who rebelled against the rules.
Quaint - yes, but effective - I think not. Time to get with the 21st century HMRC.
You can read more about it on these sites:
