It's very dark at the moment. The Tory MP Tim Yeo has noticed this, and is determined to do something about it.
He wants Britain to switch to European time, and believes the move could save more than 100 lives a year along with lots of energy.
By moving the clocks forward by one hour, schoolchildren and other people using the roads at around 4pm in winter would do so in daylight.
There should also be less of a surge in energy demand from people turning on the lights early in the afternoon.
But Mr Yeo is not the first to argue for longer evening daylight. A rummage through the parliamentary website reveals the Lighter evenings experiment bill 2005-2006; Lighter evenings bill 2003-2004; Extension to summer time bill 2001; Time zone and summer time devolution bill 1998-1999; British time extra daylight bill 1995-1995; Western European time bill 1995-1996; Central European time bill 1994-1995, and Summertime amendment bill 1992-1993.
That's as far back as the electronic records go. The bills all failed, but Mr Yeo may take heart from the fact their frequency indicates a groundswell of support for tinkering with our hours.
In fact, Britain did experiment with European time between 1968 and 1971, but the move was unpopular and was abandoned.
The same link reveals that Portugal experimented with extra daylight hours in the 1990s, but called off the trial following complaints that the lighter evenings affected children's sleep patterns.
Time will tell whether Mr Yeo's initiative shines more brightly than its predecessors.
What's certain, however, is that - were it to succeed - many more people's morning journeys to work or school would be made in the dark.
