A Mystery solved
The mystery:
Mr Alan Jackson and Mr Jimmy Buffet postulate that it is "half-past twelve, but I don't care, It's five o'clock somewhere". Where are they, and where is it thusly 5pm when it is 1230?¹
A quick check of the ever-useful Wikipedia's List of Time Zones indicates that there are several zones that a separated from GMT by a n hrs 30mins, rendering the problem trivial-one just needs to locate a zone 4hrs 30 ahead of an arbitary point-for instance Jackson & Buffet could be in Paris, in which case it is 5pm in India and Sri Lanka²
However, no Parisian employer could treat their employees as badly as Mr Jackson is treated ("I ain't had a day off now in over a year") as that contravenes the European Working Time Directive, so it seems sensible to assume our hapless protagonists are somewhere on the continental United States, meaning they must be in the Pacific Time Zone, as that is the only "lower 48" US time zone which has another time zone 4½hrs ahead of it, specifically Newfoundland Standard Time Zone.
So best estimate is that they are in California. It is five O'clock in Newfoundland. Job done ;)
1. assuming they mean official time, not the exact mean solar time for that spot, obviously
2. although we can eliminate Sri Lanka as they were on UTC+6 when the song was written
Mr Alan Jackson and Mr Jimmy Buffet postulate that it is "half-past twelve, but I don't care, It's five o'clock somewhere". Where are they, and where is it thusly 5pm when it is 1230?¹
A quick check of the ever-useful Wikipedia's List of Time Zones indicates that there are several zones that a separated from GMT by a n hrs 30mins, rendering the problem trivial-one just needs to locate a zone 4hrs 30 ahead of an arbitary point-for instance Jackson & Buffet could be in Paris, in which case it is 5pm in India and Sri Lanka²
However, no Parisian employer could treat their employees as badly as Mr Jackson is treated ("I ain't had a day off now in over a year") as that contravenes the European Working Time Directive, so it seems sensible to assume our hapless protagonists are somewhere on the continental United States, meaning they must be in the Pacific Time Zone, as that is the only "lower 48" US time zone which has another time zone 4½hrs ahead of it, specifically Newfoundland Standard Time Zone.
So best estimate is that they are in California. It is five O'clock in Newfoundland. Job done ;)
1. assuming they mean official time, not the exact mean solar time for that spot, obviously
2. although we can eliminate Sri Lanka as they were on UTC+6 when the song was written