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Showing posts from January, 2021

The absurdity of the use of kph

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  First and foremost I apologise (yet again) for such a long gap in between blog posts. The return of freedom over the past year has kept me away from screens. They say it takes 66 days to develop a new habit. Running is a habit I developed over lockdown, but the return to the office (and I intend to never work from home again) and frequenting the pub has reduced frequency of this.  It is, however, not completely bleak for my physical well-being. Cramming a number of social events in after work has led to me doing a lot more walking around central London. I don’t have an Apple Watch, (other brands of smart watch exist), but my iPhone records my steps and a lot of really interesting data on my walking and running. As would be no surprise, I’ve configured everything in metric units. Thankfully, gone are the days where Apple would dictate to you , based on your location, the units of measurement you use. You have a chose whether to specify distances in miles or kilometres. You al
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How do Godzilla and King Kong measure up for their 2021 battle?

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This is one of the "few other things" I mention in the strapline of the blog.  The last clash of the titans was in 1962. I was not alive then, but at some point in the late 90s/early noughties when I was around ten years old and absolutely crazy about Godzilla and the MonsterVerse, I saw in the TV guide that King Kong vs Godzilla was showing. I defied my parents and stayed up until 2 am to watch the film. I was excited. I had seen Godzilla emerge triumphant from battles with numerous other beasts. At this point, however I had not seen any King Kong films, but my brother had constantly told me that King Kong would be Godzilla's ultimate rival. I was eager to see this battle. By the end of the film, the excitement was replaced with anger and disappointment.  My idol was defeated by the oversized ape. I've detested King Kong ever since.  Fast forward two decades and the two titans are set to meet again, this time as CGI monsters and not men in rubber get-ups. If the pand
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Running... in kilometres

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I detest running. It is the most soul-crushingly monotonous recreational activity that mankind has inflicted upon itself. However with lockdowns, advancing age, limited exercise options and a fervent desire to not get a belly, it has become a necessary evil.  I now look forward to going for a run. This is temporary. But even in on a cold, grey day, it's an opportunity to absorb some daylight, catch up on a podcast and maybe even smile at another human being.   Despite going running almost every other day now, I don't cover huge distances. I average 5 to 10 km. People often seem quite impressed by that. I don't know why.  What does impress me is that whenever I'm asked how far I've run and I give an answer in kilometres, nobody asks me, "What's that in miles?"  People seem to simply understand.  The same universal understanding is not true when I use kilometres for anything else. For example, when giving someone directions. A significant proportion of p
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The problem with dual labelling liquids

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I was recently looking at double-walled coffee cups - thrilling, I know!  The specific gift request was for "double-walled coffee cups - large". By large, I took it to be at least 500 ml.  Double walled coffee cups are hard to find, but I did find some in the end from Argos. They had a stated volume of 350ml or 12 fluid ounces. Few people in this day and age in Britain know what an imperial fluid ounce is, and rightfully so. With the exception of draught beer and cider, and milk in returnable containers, liquids are sold in metric units and have been more and more since the late 1970s.  It therefore follows that drinking vessels (with some exceptions) should, when sold, mention only metric volumes. So for these coffee cups, there should not need to be any mention of it being 12 fluid ounces.  Whilst dual labelling is a bit cumbersome, it is not the end of the world. After all, priority was given to the metric units and it is probably a helpful step for the older generation. T
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