Every winter the cold weather takes Britain by surprise

Every winter, the cold weather takes Britain by surprise. Even in post-Soviet Russia, when the full ferocity of the Russian winter strikes in Moscow, only the drunks and the dogs have anything to fear. A reconciliation was needed and UTC was the result.Since the switch to UTC, the earth has proved pretty erratic. Time according to this atomic clock can be measured to an accuracy better than one second in 300,000 years and it was not long before researchers detected discrepancies between "old" Universal Time, defined in terms of the rotation of the earth, and atomic seconds.Tidal 'friction" from the effects of the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon, combined with internal inhomogeneities of the earth's composition, mean that it can speed up or slow down in its rotation. For as long as a second was defined in terms of the earth's rotation, these fluctuations, although detectable, were inherently measurable but they showed up against the better-than-metronomic atomic clocks. Whether we know it or not, we have been setting our watches by Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC) since 1972.The introduction of UTC followed a decision five years earlier that a second of time should be defined in terms of the vibration of caesium atoms. Researchers there time the rotation of the earth against hyper-accurate "atomic" clocks and, if the earth gets out of step with the regularity of the atomic world, they dictate that leap seconds should be inserted (or, sometimes, subtracted) from the time that the rest of us keep.The sad truth is that Greenwich Mean Time is no more.

TOM WILKIE Science Editor Before the Scots set out in the dying moments of Hogmanay to "first foot" their neighbours as the bells ring in the New Year, they will have to pause for a second - exactly a second.Although it may not seem likely to anyone who has already been at the festive drams, the earth is spinning round more slowly than it should with the result that the year is taking longer to go by.Scientists have decided that a "leap second" should be added to the national timescale at midnight on New Year's Eve, delaying the start of 1996 by one second.The "Greenwich" Time Signal to mark the transition between 1995 and 1996 will be exceptional, in that it will contain six instead of the usual five short pips before the start of the long pip which marks the hour.The leap second is being inserted into national timescales at the same instant world-wide, so the Japanese will enjoy their extra second at 9am on their New Year's Day while New Yorkers will get theirs even before the old year has finished, at 7pm on New Year's Eve.For this extra second of their festivities, the Scots can thank the French, for the decision to change our time has been made by the Paris-based International Earth Rotation Service. For picking three numbers out of six, bookies might pay out at 55-1 rather than the 9-1 returned by the lottery.The industry's bad luck is set to continue this weekend as two all- weather meetings at Wolverhampton are in doubt because low temperatures are causing the course's Fibresand particles to stick together.Race cards, page 21. Betting turnover has dropped significantly in the face of competition from the National Lottery, but the Department of National Heritage denied yesterday that it had any plans to allow bookmakers to take bets on the lottery's winning numbers.If the cold spell is prolonged, the the lottery and lack of betting turnover could put bookmakers out of business.Even the bookies' sole cause for celebration in 1995, a reduction in betting duty, was seen as too little, too late. "It wasn't enough and it was only because the lottery was devastating us that we got it," Tom Kelly, of the Betting Office Licensees Association, said yesterday.British backers can bet on the Irish state lottery numbers at branches of William Hill, but bets on Camelot's numbers are banned due to fears that lottery turnover will be affected.

GREG WOOD Losing streaks are nothing new for betting shops, but they are the punter's. As 1995 draws to a frostbound close, however, Britain's bookmakers are counting the cost after their worst run of misfortune since betting shops were legalised almost 35 years ago. With Britain's racecourses frozen solid the industry estimates that turnover of pounds 50m was lost on Boxing Day alone, and as much again on the three blank days since.Nor does their luck show much sign of turning. More than 425,000 passengers are set to fly from Heathrow between New Year's Eve and 2 January, joining a seasonal exodus 4 per cent higher than last year. Around 1.75 million have flown since 21 December.More than 700,000 passengers have passed through Gatwick over the holiday.Homeless misery, page 3. Most main routes were clear, although black ice was a risk.Travel by rail has been largely unaffected by the weather apart from Scotland where ScotRail has suffered serious disruption and 160 "snow men" have been out checking points.Airports expect a record New Year, with few problems. The Shetland Isles, where a mild thaw began yesterday, could suffer fresh blizzards.The AA motoring organisation said it was working flat-out to tackle problems, mainly flat batteries and frozen engines. Thursday was its second busiest day on record, and it has dealt with 66,000 calls in the past three days compared with a typical 13,000 a day.

Glasgow airport was the coldest place in Britain at minus 18.7C yesterday, only marginally warmer than its worst ever night earlier this week. Fresh snowfalls sweeping in from the Atlantic are set to bring a bitter chill to large swathes of Britain today. But while motoring organisations were warning drivers to think twice about their travel plans, airports were preparing for an exodus by thousands of travellers escaping the cold. After one of the coldest Christmases on record, the London Weather Centre said little of Britain was likely to escape snow or sleet today.Rain falling on the tip of Cornwall turned to snow yesterday afternoon as the cold front moved northwards through the South- west, South-east and Wales.Bitter south-easterly winds were set to make it a raw holiday Saturday with the wind-chill factor leaving the country feeling 10 degrees colder than real temperatures.However, a London Weather Centre spokeswoman said a warmer southerly wind would bring milder conditions to the majority of England by tomorrow although there would be fresh snow falls in Scotland.By New Year's Day temperatures, which have hovered at zero over the holiday period, are set to rise to 10C in the far west of England, 5-7C for mid- England and 3C in the North.Scotland will remain cold. When the helicopter arrived we were down to our last bag of coal and the generator was starting to run down.". Lough rescue boats were also unable to get through.His family's problems multiplied when his wife, Julia, slipped on the island's jetty and suffered extensive bruising to her ribs.After her rescue today she was taken to hospital for X-rays. Mrs Downey said: "Normally we keep a good supply of food and fuel on the island but we had planned to visit relatives in England for the new year and had allowed the stocks to run down."Then the snow and ice arrived, adding to our problems. The coldest temperature ever recorded in England was -26.1C at Newport, Shropshire, on 10 January, 1982.

The lowest in Scotland was -27.2C at Braemar on the same date.An 87-year-old man is feared to have fallen victim to the cold. He was found collapsed near sheltered housing in Edinburgh where he was thought to be a resident.A family stranded by ice on an isolated island in Ulster's Lough Neagh was airlifted to safety by the RAF as their food and fuel supplies dwindled.Mel Downey, warden of the National Trust-owned Coney Island, had made a number of attempts since Christmas to get to shore but could not break through the ice. them to do so." Some preferred, he said, to remain outside despite the cold.Manchester reached -12C, while an unmanned weather station in Leconfield in Humberside recorded England's low of -15C. [as] it was in Edinburgh last night."Les McEwan, director of social work for Lothian and Edinburgh, said the decision to open extra beds had been taken in light of the weather and before the details of Mr Murphy's death were known.As of yesterday there had been five applications for the places, but he said: "It is the case that some people choose not to go to hostels, however much we might want ...