Metric Britain

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The pint is inefficient, but I still want one

I have not had a single alcoholic drink since New Year's Eve. Given the lockdown, I have little incentive to drink, and so have inadvertently done Dry January. I am halfway through February sober and with Lent fast approaching, may well not be seeing booze until Easter. (The key word here is may. This restrained life is going out the window as soon as we are allowed to socialise meaningfully again.) Unlike the non-drinkers, I will not get on a high horse and preach about the virtues of sobriety. Find your nearest convert to the Church of Tee-Totalism and they will no doubt tell you that quitting booze makes you more energetic, sleep better and think more sharply. Whether there's truth to that is a matter for science. However, I have noticed myself thinking more sharply about one thing in particular - getting my hands on a freshly poured pint of anything amber (except cider... or petrol). In my first post of the current era of this blog, "showing a bit of kindness to the im...

How do Godzilla and King Kong measure up for their 2021 battle?

- 28 January

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...

Running... in kilometres

- 11 January

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...

The problem with dual labelling liquids

- 03 January

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 gene...

The complex relationship between aviation and measurement

- 28 December

“It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s... more confusion” The aviation industry is one which holds a special place in my heart, but I won’t bore you with this soppy nonsense. The measurement muddle is truly alive in this industry, so much so, that it makes measurements in Britain seem coherent. Yet still, one of the few global industries manages to work in the midst of a monstrous measurement muddle. Whilst the language of aviation is standardised to English, there is no such standardisation for units of measurement. Metres, geographical miles, nautical miles, inches of mercury, millibars, knots, metres per second are some of the measurements you are likely to come across if you’re ever in the cockpit. Let’s start with distances. In the UK, as in much of the world, most distances on the ground e.g. runway lengths, are given in metres. Once you airborne, despite flying being a fairly modern feat of engineering, you go back to the dark ages of measurement. Distances now become nauti...

George Orwell and metric units

- 21 December

When I first read Animal Farm, I was too young to understand what it was about. I was completely oblivious to the fact that the book (novella, if you must) was an anti-Stalinist satire. I took it at face value, and thought very little about the actual message — though it did leave me with a permanent craving for bacon. The only thing that really landed for me while still in primary school, was the single law which the seven commandments eventually became. "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others." In addition to being totally unaware of the political context of one of Orwell's finest works, I was also completely unmindful of the units of measurement used. In fact, when I re-read it much later on, it was no surprise to me that all units of measurements were imperial. After all, it was published in 1945. Although metric units were first permitted for use in the UK in 1897, they didn't come into common use until around 70 years later. Four years after...

The British press and metric units

- 27 November

The press shapes the way we think. This is an indisputable fact. It is also very well established that the press is a contributor to the metric muddle through its generally inconsistent use of measurements. There is a tendency for the right-wing press to favour imperial units, whilst the left wing press favours metric units, but this is not exclusively the case and there are exceptions on both sides. The one thing that is true across the political spectrum of the press is that there is a considerable inconsistency in which measurements are used. The press is not to blame for the metric muddle, to blame the press would be unfair. Indecision by successive governments has been the problem for the past half century. This inaction has led us to live in what can only be described as a 'fudge'. A nation whose official system of measurements is metric, but with so many exceptions, that it's simply a mess. This mishmash of measurements has not just affected if and when metric units...

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