Hot topic of what if we could turn back time ... T

IME stands still on Sunday morning when clocks go back to let us know that winter is really here. As if we needed reminding.

Those long hot days of summer are but a distant memory and I have the central heating at a setting similar to a sun trap in Benidorm.

As soon as the mercury dipped, the heat went on because I don’t want to be caught out by the seduction of an Indian summer or climate change fluctuations that could bring an autumn spring, where it is warm in the morning and thermal in the afternoon. That’s not good for anybody’s health.

As far as I’m concerned, winter started at the beginning of the month, it’s nearly Halloween, the clocks are going back and it’s time the weather sorted itself out.

This attitude, possibly the sign of a Grumpy Old Man, also means the car temperature is set at 71.60 Fahrenheit (220C).

Which is why my daughter started huffing and puffing on an airport run and opened a window. Opened a window? As everyone knows, that seriously affects 71.60F, a temperature I prefer when ice and snow come and climbing in the car is akin to finding life saving refuge in an igloo warm enough to thaw out an Inuit family of four.

Just as long as an Inuit family don’t take that as an invitation.

It’s not that I dislike winter – or Inuits. At my age, I’m grateful for any of the seasons and take reassurance from my chum Pete Budd whom I see at the paper shop most mornings.

“It’s all right, our kid,” he says. “I’ve checked Deaths in the Examiner and we aren’t in.” Which is always good to know. Why we still bother putting the clocks backwards and forwards is a mystery.

The Kaiser did it as part of the German First World War effort and we followed suit, because we didn’t want to get left behind on Home Front production of tanks, guns and poison gas shells.

Despite the end of that conflict 100 years ago, we still maintain the tradition of stopping time.

Which, to be honest, concept.

Imagine if you could stop time and replay it, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

You could retake that job interview until you got it right, replay that date with the girl who got away, and replay the Lottery with the winning numbers.

As that isn’t a possibility, I don’t now why we persist in adding and lopping off an hour, because it doesn’t increase daylight hours, which will continue to dwindle until the winter solstice on December 21.

This is the shortest day of the year with only seven-and-a-half daylight hours and the promise of ice and snow, when everyone will be wanting to enjoy the heat of a Benidorm sun trap.

And I shall be particularly wary of Inuit families looking for a motor car igloo.

In the meantime, don’t forget to put your clocks back on Sunday.