I tend to create my own functions in a file that is available to all pages, something like
Function MyDate() { // Creates a timestamp for a UK website on a TCH server
Return date("YmdHis", strtotime("+5 hours"));
}
Dates are shown as 200711070900 (6th Nov 2007 9:00 am)
Then when I want to display my date I use another function like
Function ShowDate($ThisDate) {
Return date("l jS F Y", strtotime($ThisDate));
}
$Date = MyDate(); // returns 200711070900
echo ShowDate($Date); // Prints Wednesday 7th November 2007