Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

This weekend daylight saving ends. So those who have diligently saved all summer, may now start spending your daylight.

Anyone who foolishly didn't save any daylight during the summer will be sorry now – unless they can borrow or buy some from persons who have surplus. Personally, I wouldn't pay their asking prices. At the rate being charged by some outlets, it's daylight robbery.

Also this weekend, you will have to shift the numbers on your clock. All the digits need to go forward an hour, which means that the 12 goes where the one is, the one goes where the two is. The two goes where the four is.

Ha, just testing to see if you were paying attention. We all know the 13 comes next, because with the return of Daylight Spending, we get to use the extra hour every day.

Anyway, you can work it out from here. If you get confused half way around the clock face, just hum to yourself the ‘Twelve days of Christmas' song till you get the numbers back in the same order. Or phone the Department of Internal Affairs and tell them Rogers Rabbits referred you.

DO NOT under any circumstances invert the six or the nine during your re-numbering. This will result in all sorts of mayhem and you may miss morning tea time or have two breakfasts.

Some people (who also think the earth is round) have the odd notion that it is easier to wind the hands of the clock back, leaving the numbers in the same place. Another technique is to turn the clock around for an hour, so the hands wind backwards. Just make sure it's for exactly 60 minutes, and presto, you'll have reclaimed the extra time.

Well we all know that taking cheeky shortcuts like that will end in disaster. Believe me, stick with the tried-and-true digit relocation system. It's fun for the whole family.

We know that after a few decades of Daylight Saving, many people are still confused as to which way to change their clocks. So here's a little ditty to help you remember:

'You put your big hand in, put your big hand out,

Put your big hand in and you shake it all about.

You do the hokey cokey and you turn around, that's what it's all about.”

We also have some other handy tips, sent by diligent reader, Pete:

Do not tell the fire brigade that you got the toaster idea from me. It would be useful to have changed the batteries in your smoke alarm when you altered your clock numbers, so when the cheese/toast bomb goes off in the toaster, you may get some warning.

In other news, Samoa Air has introduced 'pay as you weigh” for passengers – a world first meaning fat people will pay more. Samoa is among the top 10 obesity achievers, so the airline reckons the new policy, while not only fair, will help raise awareness of health and obesity issues.

There's a bonus here for families, as those with small children may end up paying a lot less. Especially if you starve the brats for a few weeks before your holiday. Do this by leaving the seven and 12 numbers off your clock, and they will miss three meals a day.

That is good news for skinny travellers. Now, just make sure you get your clock re-numbering right, so you don't miss the flight.

We're accepting new names this week for the North and South Island. The critics are right, they are very bland labels. James Cook must have been running fairly short of inspiration, after all the naming he did as he mapped the country.

This weekend we took the grandies sailing out of Whitianga, and regailed them with the 'logical” naming process of the islands of Mercury Bay.

'That round one is called Round Island. The one in the centre of the bay is Middle Island. Those two similar ones together are The Twins… and see that one down the coast that looks like a shoe…”

Anyway, it would be nice to have names for the North and South Island with a bit more flair and imagination. I quite like Te Waipounamu. But guess what…it will be always be the South Island because that is what we call it. Good luck brow beating the population into changing.

Egmont is still Egmont in my head and Tamatea Arikinui Drive is a wonderful name but it will always be Route J; Red Square is still Red Square and that, whether you or I like it not, is the way it will stay.

Probably the best idea is call the islands what a lot of the current young generation call them: Norf and Sowf.

Speaking of names, we have some feedback from last week's RR on the subject of cool names:

'Greetings Brian. In teaching, 'interesting' (not sure about cool!) names abound for kids these days. In my experience, if some of the parents concerned showed the same level of support and effort with their parenting skills as they seem to manage with creating unique names, more of their kids would do much better in school.
Some of the names encountered over the last few years before I recently retired from Mt Primary included Storm, Saffron and Awesome (he was too!). I'm not sure about Ecstasy.”
- Mike Shennen

'The name game: My late husband, Des White, had a forbear named Captain James Stone, (Captain was his Christian name) who arrived in New Zealand in 1840, and later became one of the first "movers and shakers" in early Auckland, and whose son was the first white child born in Auckland.

I had a cousin back in Minnesota, by the name of Homer Herbert Hagna. Perhaps that's the reason he never married! I can hardly wait each week for "RR". Keep it up.”
- Jo-an M White, Mount Maunganui.

Parting thought:
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night. – Steve Martin.