Help to buy was presented as the solution, but how can this be anything other than a damning indictment of housing policy?
Well, you have the following religious beliefs
- Development is bad - Building things is bad - Building houses is really really bad - We need a rising population
Then people are surprised that there is a bit of a shortage of places for people to live....
In fairness various governments don't think development or building is bad, but since their voters generally do think that their efforts to resolve things have not been super effective.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Traffic Cones hotline was an important principle - giving voters access to a bureaucracy which before had been untouchable and unaccountable.
This on the other hand, as Malc would say is pure “mince”.
It’s actually a study looking for any benefits of doing it.
I’ll happily do it.
“None”
Invoice attached.
Can I suggest selling petrol and diesel in gallons. We still think about fuel efficiency in miles per gallon - the obvious mixed measure miles per litre does not appear to be well used.
Fair point. I have never grasped why we use mpg for fuel efficiency, yet petrol is advertised in price per litre. Seems completely bonkers even by British standards. I'm quite suspicious of Big Oil so always assumed it was to trick the customer into thinking the fuel was cheaper than it was –– but that's almost certainly a conspiracy theory too far.
Labelling the price per gallon might improve the competition a bit. I know it is irrational, but if the difference is 4.5p per gallon instead of 1p per litre, people might actually notice more.
Though I expect it would be used as an excuse to hide a 10% price hike in the conversion.
We'll all be driving EVs soon anyway so it's not going to be much of a long term effect. I wonder if they could think up an imperial version of KWh.
I see we are at that point in the PB cycle where @HYUFD is adamant that Le Pen is about to be elected president of France.
C’est la vie
No. I said Macron would still be re elected against Le Pen this year but she would get a 9% swing to her since 2017 on the latest poll if she made the runoff from Macron.
If she got a 9% swing again in 2027 then Le Pen would be elected President of France
Hey, shocker. If she got more votes than Macron in the run-off she'd be elected. And if I had a billion dollars, I'd be rich.
This article, and the associated videos, make Wallace's remarks look more like semi-official chat than private banter, and are also getting a lot of coverage in the Mail, which means they will be read in Russia.
I detect Trussery: profile raising with a view to having a stab at the top job.
Makes him look an arse but doesn't really matter, I don't think being called tonto by a flesh lump in a waistcoat will be what tips Vlad into total war
Indeed no, but it's certainly stupid and doesn't help things.
If he really thinks that's an appropriate way of leadership-raising he's an idiot, which he hasn't shown up untll now.
Well, you need the vote of the electorate which gave us IDS. A non idiotic approach isn't going to cut through.
No coincidence it is the Mail reporting this
Indeed, but the comments even in the Mail seem to be almost entirely of the "What an idiot" variety, though.
There's doesn't seem to be any appetite for unnecessary war, even in the wilder parts of the Brexiter right.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Traffic Cones hotline was an important principle - giving voters access to a bureaucracy which before had been untouchable and unaccountable.
This on the other hand, as Malc would say is pure “mince”.
It’s actually a study looking for any benefits of doing it.
I’ll happily do it.
“None”
Invoice attached.
Can I suggest selling petrol and diesel in gallons. We still think about fuel efficiency in miles per gallon - the obvious mixed measure miles per litre does not appear to be well used.
Fair point. I have never grasped why we use mpg for fuel efficiency, yet petrol is advertised in price per litre. Seems completely bonkers even by British standards. I'm quite suspicious of Big Oil so always assumed it was to trick the customer into thinking the fuel was cheaper than it was –– but that's almost certainly a conspiracy theory too far.
Labelling the price per gallon might improve the competition a bit. I know it is irrational, but if the difference is 4.5p per gallon instead of 1p per litre, people might actually notice more.
Though I expect it would be used as an excuse to hide a 10% price hike in the conversion.
We'll all be driving EVs soon anyway so it's not going to be much of a long term effect. I wonder if they could think up an imperial version of KWh.
There are lots of imperial units for energy, naturally. One British Thermal Unit (BTU) is not that far off one kJ, so a kWh is roughly 3,600 BTU, but the horsepower-hour or gasoline gallon might give you more human-readable numbers.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
There is something about the landmark of 6 ft. To get to 2 m is not so desirable
Feet are just more human-sized. 5 ft is small, 6 ft is a tallish man, 7 ft is a basketball player. Whereas 1 m is a child, 2 m is very tall and 3 m is impossible.
Yes, though middle-aged-fogey though I am, feet is the metric unit I am least comfortable with. I can visualise a person being 4', 5', 6', 7' tall - but ask me to visualise a 30' building and I have to mentally translate it to metres. And I can't visualise distance (rather than height) in feet at all. Again, I have to translate into metres (or yards, which is almost the same thing, for mental-picture purposes). That's just me though - I'm not trying to say one is better than another.
My personal weather temperature scale is Celsius at lower temperatures ("0, 4" etc) then turns Fahrenheit at higher temperatures ("In the 70s") but reverts to Celsius for cooking (having to look up 450F.....).
I see we are at that point in the PB cycle where @HYUFD is adamant that Le Pen is about to be elected president of France.
C’est la vie
No. I said Macron would still be re elected against Le Pen this year but she would get a 9% swing to her since 2017 on the latest poll if she made the runoff from Macron.
If she got a 9% swing again in 2027 then Le Pen would be elected President of France
Hey, shocker. If she got more votes than Macron in the run-off she'd be elected. And if I had a billion dollars, I'd be rich.
True, though to be fair, the French political system is experimentally attempting to find the limit to VoteForAnyoneButTheFascistInTheLastRound.
One of these days they will find a candidate who actually breaks that. But not with Le Pen, probably.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
There is something about the landmark of 6 ft. To get to 2 m is not so desirable
Feet are just more human-sized. 5 ft is small, 6 ft is a tallish man, 7 ft is a basketball player. Whereas 1 m is a child, 2 m is very tall and 3 m is impossible.
Yes, though middle-aged-fogey though I am, feet is the metric unit I am least comfortable with. I can visualise a person being 4', 5', 6', 7' tall - but ask me to visualise a 30' building and I have to mentally translate it to metres. And I can't visualise distance (rather than height) in feet at all. Again, I have to translate into metres (or yards, which is almost the same thing, for mental-picture purposes). That's just me though - I'm not trying to say one is better than another.
I agree with distance - except that when you get to travel distance, miles over km every time (not least because on long journeys you can hope to average 60mph which makes approximating time from distance trivial).
For me it is temperatures. Brought up in Cyprus under imperial, I intuitively 'know' temperatures in Fahrenheit from 45F-90F. Moving to Yemen in my first overseas professional job, I intuitively 'know' temperatures in Centigrade in the 35-50C range. Then Geneva, so centigrade for 5c to -5c. And then Maryland, so back to Fahrenheit fo 20F to -25F.
I'm trying to train myself in the use of degrees Newton, as his temperature scale was based on differences in temperature that he could perceive, and so seems more useful than the excessive accuracy of the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.
As it happens, 1 degree Newton is roughly 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which seems to equate to how temperatures are talked about in the US, "high 70s", or "low 60s", etc, which seems to prove that Newton was right all along, because no-one can perceive the difference between 65F and 64F, or even 17C and 18C.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
I use them all the time and nobody sneers at me. At least, not that I can see.
It's metric measurements that seem to cause confusion.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Traffic Cones hotline was an important principle - giving voters access to a bureaucracy which before had been untouchable and unaccountable.
This on the other hand, as Malc would say is pure “mince”.
It’s actually a study looking for any benefits of doing it.
I’ll happily do it.
“None”
Invoice attached.
Can I suggest selling petrol and diesel in gallons. We still think about fuel efficiency in miles per gallon - the obvious mixed measure miles per litre does not appear to be well used.
We should really take the opportunity to reverse the measure to be volume per distance, such as litres per 100 miles, as it makes it easier to calculate the cost of journeys and compare efficiencies.
I have an app which automatically calculates fuel efficiency in mpg and pence per mile, which is very ueeful. Especially when someone tells me they're going to pay me 45p per mile for a 200+ mile round trip and the fuel only cost me ~10p per mile. Covered the cost of the hotel too
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity. It’s just another plank in the culture war, another way to try to secure the votes of the reactionary elderly as they continue to refuse to admit what a fucking terrible impact Brexit is having.
The Boomers in my family are beginning to look haunted as they contemplate the rapidly increasing prices for everything, half-heartedly muttering that it’s all down to Covid. I don’t think they even persuade themselves anymore. They know it’s hugely exacerbated by leaving the single market, they know collectively we’ve dropped a massive bollock whose effects fate has decided to spice up with Covid and now the turmoil in the east, they just can’t bring themselves to say it out loud yet.
Prices are rising in the EU too, you know. I was in a cafe the other day where I overheard some fella saying that gas prices were down to one thing and one thing only: Brexit. Which just isn't true. Of the things which could be laid at Brexit's door, gas prices are surely right down at the bottom of the list, below geopolitical events, international demand, government decisions on energy policy and infrastrcuture over the last 20 years, the weather...
Brexit will have an impact on economics, certainly. But compared to covid its impact is pretty small. And in all honesty, economically, I would rather be in the UK where we have moved beyond covid than in most of the EU where they have not. Could we have reached the same point within the EU? Sure - look at Denmark and Sweden. Would we? I doubt it.
And the culture war does need fighting. My view is that the forces of woke - who are small in number but culturally powerful - have the capacity to be hugely damaging to Britain and the west in general. But the imperial/metric battle isn't the field to fight on. There isn't a battle there to be won: we can drink our beer in pints, we can measure our speed in miles per hour, we can calculate our engineering in millimetres and kilograms. We can buy our meat in whatever units we choose. There is no battle there worth fighting; no enemy to take on.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity. It’s just another plank in the culture war, another way to try to secure the votes of the reactionary elderly as they continue to refuse to admit what a fucking terrible impact Brexit is having.
The Boomers in my family are beginning to look haunted as they contemplate the rapidly increasing prices for everything, half-heartedly muttering that it’s all down to Covid. I don’t think they even persuade themselves anymore. They know it’s hugely exacerbated by leaving the single market, they know collectively we’ve dropped a massive bollock whose effects fate has decided to spice up with Covid and now the turmoil in the east, they just can’t bring themselves to say it out loud yet.
Prices are rising in the EU too, you know. I was in a cafe the other day where I overheard some fella saying that gas prices were down to one thing and one thing only: Brexit. Which just isn't true. Of the things which could be laid at Brexit's door, gas prices are surely right down at the bottom of the list, below geopolitical events, international demand, government decisions on energy policy and infrastrcuture over the last 20 years, the weather...
Brexit will have an impact on economics, certainly. But compared to covid its impact is pretty small. And in all honesty, economically, I would rather be in the UK where we have moved beyond covid than in most of the EU where they have not. Could we have reached the same point within the EU? Sure - look at Denmark and Sweden. Would we? I doubt it.
And the culture war does need fighting. My view is that the forces of woke - who are small in number but culturally powerful - have the capacity to be hugely damaging to Britain and the west in general. But the imperial/metric battle isn't the field to fight on. There isn't a battle there to be won: we can drink our beer in pints, we can measure our speed in miles per hour, we can calculate our engineering in millimetres and kilograms. We can buy our meat in whatever units we choose. There is no battle there worth fighting; no enemy to take on.
Yeah I know prices are rising in other places, in the EU, everywhere, for reasons that are obviously not Brexit-related. That’s why I was careful to say in the UK the situation is exacerbated by leaving the single market.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity. It’s just another plank in the culture war, another way to try to secure the votes of the reactionary elderly as they continue to refuse to admit what a fucking terrible impact Brexit is having.
The Boomers in my family are beginning to look haunted as they contemplate the rapidly increasing prices for everything, half-heartedly muttering that it’s all down to Covid. I don’t think they even persuade themselves anymore. They know it’s hugely exacerbated by leaving the single market, they know collectively we’ve dropped a massive bollock whose effects fate has decided to spice up with Covid and now the turmoil in the east, they just can’t bring themselves to say it out loud yet.
Prices are rising in the EU too, you know. I was in a cafe the other day where I overheard some fella saying that gas prices were down to one thing and one thing only: Brexit. Which just isn't true. Of the things which could be laid at Brexit's door, gas prices are surely right down at the bottom of the list, below geopolitical events, international demand, government decisions on energy policy and infrastrcuture over the last 20 years, the weather...
Brexit will have an impact on economics, certainly. But compared to covid its impact is pretty small. And in all honesty, economically, I would rather be in the UK where we have moved beyond covid than in most of the EU where they have not. Could we have reached the same point within the EU? Sure - look at Denmark and Sweden. Would we? I doubt it.
And the culture war does need fighting. My view is that the forces of woke - who are small in number but culturally powerful - have the capacity to be hugely damaging to Britain and the west in general. But the imperial/metric battle isn't the field to fight on. There isn't a battle there to be won: we can drink our beer in pints, we can measure our speed in miles per hour, we can calculate our engineering in millimetres and kilograms. We can buy our meat in whatever units we choose. There is no battle there worth fighting; no enemy to take on.
Yeah I know prices are rising in other places, in the EU, everywhere, for reasons that are obviously not Brexit-related. That’s why I was careful to say in the UK the situation is exacerbated by leaving the single market.
Was just talking to one of my Pakistani colleagues in Islamabad. Asked her how the Ukraine situation was playing in the country. She said no-one is really paying it any attention - all they talk about is inflation.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
I have a right to use whatever measurements I like (I'm a centimetre/litre/celsius man), and you have a right to sneer at me if you've nothing better to do. It's an area where live and let live works quite well. But having a required standard (either way) is a good idea, as it helps competition if everything is comparable. If people want to put the other system next to it, so much the better.
I do think that miles per gallon is daft when we buy petrol in litres.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
You can round up easier in feet and inches.
Someone 5'11 and a bit can claim to be 6ft whereas someone 181cm isnt 183cm.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
You can round up easier in feet and inches.
Someone 5'11 and a bit can claim to be 6ft whereas someone 181cm isnt 183cm.
Aren't most clothes measured in inches? Or is it just I've never bothered looking for the metric label?
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
I look at them when shopping. Currently might need to compare price per 100g vs price per kg which is obviously trivial. Comparing price per pound, per ounce and per kilo is going to get complicated.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
Minus four grams of ordinary flour?
I meant 500g.
I was just testing to see who would notice...
You know the P in PB really stands for "pedantry", right?
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
Minus four grams of ordinary flour?
I meant 500g.
I was just testing to see who would notice...
You know the P in PB really stands for "pedantry", right?
Sorry, what was that? I was cleaning up the mess after the lie detector exploded. It happened when I hit 'publish' on the last post.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
You can round up easier in feet and inches.
Someone 5'11 and a bit can claim to be 6ft whereas someone 181cm isnt 183cm.
Aren't most clothes measured in inches? Or is it just I've never bothered looking for the metric label?
Inches far more common than metric, but think most clothes have moved to sizing divorced from the actual dimensions so they don't remind us how overweight we have become.....
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
You can round up easier in feet and inches.
Someone 5'11 and a bit can claim to be 6ft whereas someone 181cm isnt 183cm.
Aren't most clothes measured in inches? Or is it just I've never bothered looking for the metric label?
Inches far more common than metric, but think most clothes have moved to sizing divorced from the actual dimensions so they don't remind us how overweight we have become.....
They should simplify it:
Slim
Svelte
High BMI
Normal size, or 'overweight' as the doctor calls it
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity. It’s just another plank in the culture war, another way to try to secure the votes of the reactionary elderly as they continue to refuse to admit what a fucking terrible impact Brexit is having.
The Boomers in my family are beginning to look haunted as they contemplate the rapidly increasing prices for everything, half-heartedly muttering that it’s all down to Covid. I don’t think they even persuade themselves anymore. They know it’s hugely exacerbated by leaving the single market, they know collectively we’ve dropped a massive bollock whose effects fate has decided to spice up with Covid and now the turmoil in the east, they just can’t bring themselves to say it out loud yet.
Prices are rising in the EU too, you know. I was in a cafe the other day where I overheard some fella saying that gas prices were down to one thing and one thing only: Brexit. Which just isn't true. Of the things which could be laid at Brexit's door, gas prices are surely right down at the bottom of the list, below geopolitical events, international demand, government decisions on energy policy and infrastrcuture over the last 20 years, the weather...
Brexit will have an impact on economics, certainly. But compared to covid its impact is pretty small. And in all honesty, economically, I would rather be in the UK where we have moved beyond covid than in most of the EU where they have not. Could we have reached the same point within the EU? Sure - look at Denmark and Sweden. Would we? I doubt it.
And the culture war does need fighting. My view is that the forces of woke - who are small in number but culturally powerful - have the capacity to be hugely damaging to Britain and the west in general. But the imperial/metric battle isn't the field to fight on. There isn't a battle there to be won: we can drink our beer in pints, we can measure our speed in miles per hour, we can calculate our engineering in millimetres and kilograms. We can buy our meat in whatever units we choose. There is no battle there worth fighting; no enemy to take on.
Yeah I know prices are rising in other places, in the EU, everywhere, for reasons that are obviously not Brexit-related. That’s why I was careful to say in the UK the situation is exacerbated by leaving the single market.
And that is the point. Its not that prices are only rising here, its that we have a unique and singular additional cost which is added on top of the general price mountain. That other countries may have their own unique and different to ours add-ons does not disprove or negate our own.
As for measures, the status quo - measuring distance in imperial and volume in metric - is bloody stupid. So lets not fight over changing it. Selling fuel in gallons - or at least co-pricing it - would be better than now.
But - and its a big but - better than now doesn't mean we should do it. Its bad enough being one of the last holdouts for miles. If we go back to daft imperial measure for stuff like gallons then we're just cutting ourselves off from the world even further.
If we're going down the full imperial route can we at least adopt US imperial and try to standardise? Otherwise we have measures that hardly anyone else does. Which hardly makes "global Britain" easier to trade with.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
"Bringing back imperial measurements" is code for being able to use imperial measurements without being sneered at, and in response, the likes of Otto English are trying to assert their right to sneer at people who are attached to imperial measurements.
You mean its all about not upsetting the snowflake boomer generation?
How many people actually use weights and measures in their normal life?
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
Minus four grams of ordinary flour?
I meant 500g.
I was just testing to see who would notice...
There's no knead for that kind of thing
I do bread in metric because the ratio flour:water is a satisfying 2g:1 ml. Mind you Oz/fl Oz probably works the same
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
When we converted from funny money to metric we converted old into new. We missed a trick with weights and measures. Just round a pint down to 500ml (instant bit of shrinkflation but no different to all the rest), an inch to 2.5cm, a yard to a metre, a mile to 2 kilometres etc etc
You can't say "but thats wrong" because the existing measures are made up anyway and non-standard to colony imperial.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
I'm five years younger than you, and I was taught in imperial measurements. Sure, there was a very half-hearted effort to teach us metric in primary school but the teachers had to admit they didn't understand it and they gave up. At secondary school, it was imperial all the way.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
Edit - by the way, Happy Birthday. Hope you have a good one.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
When we converted from funny money to metric we converted old into new. We missed a trick with weights and measures. Just round a pint down to 500ml (instant bit of shrinkflation but no different to all the rest), an inch to 2.5cm, a yard to a metre, a mile to 2 kilometres etc etc
You can't say "but thats wrong" because the existing measures are made up anyway and non-standard to colony imperial.
I'd be in favour of changing a mile to 2 km, as long as the motorway speed limit stays at 70 mph.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
But it always was, with long and short tons and so on. It isn't even always a measurement of weight, it's 100 cubic feet in some contexts
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
It was never going to be long. But that one was off the scales.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
I'm five years younger than you, and I was taught in imperial measurements. Sure, there was a very half-hearted effort to teach us metric in primary school but the teachers had to admit they didn't understand it and they gave up. At secondary school, it was imperial all the way.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
I am old enough to be taught the new metric when a child at school. But memories lingered. One story at the organization where I worked as a student in the vacs - an academic had sent an indent for a wooden box for a small instrument with dims marked in mm. The joiners had simply taken one look at the numbers - obviously not feet and inches, or feet, so went straight ahead and produced something 25.4 times too big. But I also heard tales of middle aged craftsmen confronted with this new system which nobody had taught then and almost crying with not knowing what was going on or what to do.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
But it always was, with long and short tons and so on. It isn't even always a measurement of weight, it's 100 cubic feet in some contexts
Just wait till you get into ship displacements, what with GRT and the Washington and London naval treaties ...
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
I'm five years younger than you, and I was taught in imperial measurements. Sure, there was a very half-hearted effort to teach us metric in primary school but the teachers had to admit they didn't understand it and they gave up. At secondary school, it was imperial all the way.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
Edit - by the way, Happy Birthday. Hope you have a good one.
I'm 55 and was taught exclusively in metric. Before Geoffrey Howe was taken off the case.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
Stone the crows!
I guess a lot of people are just fed up with being hectare d over this subject
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
Stone the crows!
I guess a lot of people are just fed up with being hectare d over this subject
We could short ton matters by talking about Boris Johnson's uselessness instead?
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
A (ton / tonne / metric tonne) is something you can't lift and don't want landing on your head. It doesn't matter exactly what definition you use. Also, more than one ton has exactly the same effect on you as one ton.
If you want to actually measure something, use kg.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
That type of measurement always seemed a bit fishy to me. Makes a rod for your own back.
This idea to reintroduce imperial measures is traffic cone hotlines levels of pathetic from the government.
Reintroduce imperial measures to what? Speed limit signs still show miles per hour, for instance, but champagne can no longer be bought in pints, as Churchill would have had.
And life has gone on nevertheless. What benefits will occur from this new old path?
No idea. The devil is in the detail. I suspect teaching schoolchildren to measure their heights in feet and inches, while using metres for physics lessons, would probably be a good idea but I've not seen any detail of what the government intends, if it intends anything at all: some policies are for announcing, not enacting.
All of my son's friends (12-14 years old) already use feet and inches for their heights. I don't think metric is widely used for that purpose, even among the young.
There is something about the landmark of 6 ft. To get to 2 m is not so desirable
Feet are just more human-sized. 5 ft is small, 6 ft is a tallish man, 7 ft is a basketball player. Whereas 1 m is a child, 2 m is very tall and 3 m is impossible.
Yes, though middle-aged-fogey though I am, feet is the metric unit I am least comfortable with. I can visualise a person being 4', 5', 6', 7' tall - but ask me to visualise a 30' building and I have to mentally translate it to metres. And I can't visualise distance (rather than height) in feet at all. Again, I have to translate into metres (or yards, which is almost the same thing, for mental-picture purposes). That's just me though - I'm not trying to say one is better than another.
I'm very similar - distance is meters and miles. People are feet. Small distances are centimeters.
Drinks are liters and milliliters. Temperature is Celsius when it's cold, and farenheit when it's warm.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
That type of measurement always seemed a bit fishy to me. Makes a rod for your own back.
Not least because a perch or a rod can be a unit of areal or linear measure.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
Hand me that Whitworth spanner will you? No not the AF, BSF or British Standard Whitworth spanner, it's for a pre-war Whitworth bolt.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
Stone the crows!
I guess a lot of people are just fed up with being hectare d over this subject
We could short ton matters by talking about Boris Johnson's uselessness instead?
Indeed, perhaps how he has a propensity to always put his FOOT in his mouth
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
A (ton / tonne / metric tonne) is something you can't lift and don't want landing on your head. It doesn't matter exactly what definition you use. Also, more than one ton has exactly the same effect on you as one ton.
If you want to actually measure something, use kg.
It is instructive to note that kg is the unit used on containers.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
But it always was, with long and short tons and so on. It isn't even always a measurement of weight, it's 100 cubic feet in some contexts
Just wait till you get into ship displacements, what with GRT and the Washington and London naval treaties ...
Of course there is one shitty benefit to ask this which is that it sabotages a proposed re-entry to the EU if you can create a new generation who can complain about having to adopt foreign weights and measures, and factories which have to retool.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
When we converted from funny money to metric we converted old into new. We missed a trick with weights and measures. Just round a pint down to 500ml (instant bit of shrinkflation but no different to all the rest), an inch to 2.5cm, a yard to a metre, a mile to 2 kilometres etc etc
You can't say "but thats wrong" because the existing measures are made up anyway and non-standard to colony imperial.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
That type of measurement always seemed a bit fishy to me. Makes a rod for your own back.
Not least because a perch or a rod can be a unit of areal or linear measure.
Indeed, but best not CHAIN yourself to these antiquarian units of measurement
Of course there is one shitty benefit to ask this which is that it sabotages a proposed re-entry to the EU if you can create a new generation who can complain about having to adopt foreign weights and measures, and factories which have to retool.
OTOH that presupposes that the current younger generation are willing to retool both mentally and industrially. And when the current generation of metric-ignorant Tory voters has died off ...
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
That type of measurement always seemed a bit fishy to me. Makes a rod for your own back.
Not least because a perch or a rod can be a unit of areal or linear measure.
Indeed, but best not CHAIN yourself to these antiquarian units of measurement
One can but hide in terror at the thouight of bringing them back ...
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
I'm five years younger than you, and I was taught in imperial measurements. Sure, there was a very half-hearted effort to teach us metric in primary school but the teachers had to admit they didn't understand it and they gave up. At secondary school, it was imperial all the way.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
Edit - by the way, Happy Birthday. Hope you have a good one.
I'm two years older than Monkey - 7 years older than ydoethur - and I was taught entirely in metric. But, because I'm a human rather than a robot, and I have parents, and grandparents, and exist alongside other people who grew up pre-metric, and have read the odd book from before 1974, I know how long a yard or an inch is; how heavy a pound is, how much a gallon is. This feels a bit like the trope on Pointless of 'before my time'* - surely one picks these things up? There wasn't a year zero of metrification after which we started again and never mentioned the old units or things of old.
Metric is a system for calculations, and is wonderful for the purpose. But its words aren't much fun to say, and so the old measures persist in our speech and our habits. For anyone who enjoys ease of calculation and relishes language, this seems a perfectly acceptable circumstance.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
Stone the crows!
I guess a lot of people are just fed up with being hectare d over this subject
We could short ton matters by talking about Boris Johnson's uselessness instead?
Indeed, perhaps how he has a propensity to always put his FOOT in his mouth
Isn't his foot more usually in Carrie's mouth these days?
(This may require explanation of Shakespearean slang.)
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
That type of measurement always seemed a bit fishy to me. Makes a rod for your own back.
Not least because a perch or a rod can be a unit of areal or linear measure.
Indeed, but best not CHAIN yourself to these antiquarian units of measurement
One can but hide in terror at the thouight of bringing them back ...
Help to buy was presented as the solution, but how can this be anything other than a damning indictment of housing policy?
Well, you have the following religious beliefs
- Development is bad - Building things is bad - Building houses is really really bad - We need a rising population
Then people are surprised that there is a bit of a shortage of places for people to live....
In fairness various governments don't think development or building is bad, but since their voters generally do think that their efforts to resolve things have not been super effective.
Voters are generally in favor of new developments, just so long as the developments are somewhere else.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
It is going to be a long weight until we get that sorted.
I wondered how long it would be before someone weighed in with a terrible pun
Stone the crows!
I guess a lot of people are just fed up with being hectare d over this subject
We could short ton matters by talking about Boris Johnson's uselessness instead?
Indeed, perhaps how he has a propensity to always put his FOOT in his mouth
Isn't his foot more usually in Carrie's mouth these days?
(This may require explanation of Shakespearean slang.)
More of an inch or two (no no pass the mind bleach!)
When we converted from funny money to metric we converted old into new. We missed a trick with weights and measures. Just round a pint down to 500ml (instant bit of shrinkflation but no different to all the rest), an inch to 2.5cm, a yard to a metre, a mile to 2 kilometres etc etc
You can't say "but thats wrong" because the existing measures are made up anyway and non-standard to colony imperial.
I'd be in favour of changing a mile to 2 km, as long as the motorway speed limit stays at 70 mph.
I would walk 621.1 miles and I would walk 621.1 more Just to be the man who walked 1242.2 miles to fall down at your door
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
I'm five years younger than you, and I was taught in imperial measurements. Sure, there was a very half-hearted effort to teach us metric in primary school but the teachers had to admit they didn't understand it and they gave up. At secondary school, it was imperial all the way.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
Edit - by the way, Happy Birthday. Hope you have a good one.
I'm two years older than Monkey - 7 years older than ydoethur - and I was taught entirely in metric. But, because I'm a human rather than a robot, and I have parents, and grandparents, and exist alongside other people who grew up pre-metric, and have read the odd book from before 1974, I know how long a yard or an inch is; how heavy a pound is, how much a gallon is. This feels a bit like the trope on Pointless of 'before my time'* - surely one picks these things up? There wasn't a year zero of metrification after which we started again and never mentioned the old units or things of old.
Metric is a system for calculations, and is wonderful for the purpose. But its words aren't much fun to say, and so the old measures persist in our speech and our habits. For anyone who enjoys ease of calculation and relishes language, this seems a perfectly acceptable circumstance.
One thing that has not been commented on, I don't think, is that Tory tax cuts for next GE are completely out of the question now. We are going to have to spend a hell of a lot more on defence as a country in next five to ten years.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
You’re right, it’s never gone away in the kind of convenient measurements we use every day, saying an inch rather than 2.5cm, for example. So why the need to have a study to reintroduce them? It’s just a performance to tickle the Boomers’ nostalgia. A Brexiter dog whistle.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
Yes, I do, and yes, I have.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
Good, glad you do. Excellent. You’re in a tiny minority.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
I don't know how small a minority I'm in. Possibly rather larger than you realise.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
You may well be right, it probably is bigger than I imagine. But shrinking rapidly.
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
I'm five years younger than you, and I was taught in imperial measurements. Sure, there was a very half-hearted effort to teach us metric in primary school but the teachers had to admit they didn't understand it and they gave up. At secondary school, it was imperial all the way.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
Edit - by the way, Happy Birthday. Hope you have a good one.
I'm two years older than Monkey - 7 years older than ydoethur - and I was taught entirely in metric. But, because I'm a human rather than a robot, and I have parents, and grandparents, and exist alongside other people who grew up pre-metric, and have read the odd book from before 1974, I know how long a yard or an inch is; how heavy a pound is, how much a gallon is. This feels a bit like the trope on Pointless of 'before my time'* - surely one picks these things up? There wasn't a year zero of metrification after which we started again and never mentioned the old units or things of old.
Metric is a system for calculations, and is wonderful for the purpose. But its words aren't much fun to say, and so the old measures persist in our speech and our habits. For anyone who enjoys ease of calculation and relishes language, this seems a perfectly acceptable circumstance.
I'm almost 2 decades older than you and at least from where maths started getting at all complicated, I was taught entirely in metric and in SI mks units to the degree that I was thrown when asked to calculate dynamics in imperial - being completely confused by the use of 'pound' as both a mass and a force unit.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
I could never understand why an acre is 43,560 square feet until one day, bored, I factored 43,560 and realized that it was one chain by one furlong. So I guess an acre must go back to the days of feudal strip farming. *Edit. This also explains why there are 640 acres per square mile, or per section in US-speak.
Incidentally, being aware that an acre was a chain by a furlong enabled me for the first time to calculate roughly in my mind how many acres a property might be.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
A (ton / tonne / metric tonne) is something you can't lift and don't want landing on your head. It doesn't matter exactly what definition you use. Also, more than one ton has exactly the same effect on you as one ton.
If you want to actually measure something, use kg.
It is instructive to note that kg is the unit used on containers.
A container ship overloaded by 10% is not a good thing.
Help to buy was presented as the solution, but how can this be anything other than a damning indictment of housing policy?
Well, you have the following religious beliefs
- Development is bad - Building things is bad - Building houses is really really bad - We need a rising population
Then people are surprised that there is a bit of a shortage of places for people to live....
In fairness various governments don't think development or building is bad, but since their voters generally do think that their efforts to resolve things have not been super effective.
Voters are generally in favor of new developments, just so long as the developments are somewhere else.
In this part of Southern Hampshire its hard to imagine there could be more new build housing developments than there currently are.
Just heard about the study at bringing back Imperial measurements, went to Twitter to see what the hive mind thinks. This made me chuckle:
They won’t bring them back. It’s insanity.
Am I the only person wondering what the hell all the fuss is about?
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
0.57 litres of your finest warm India Pale Ale barman please.
Just spent some of yesterday afternoon calculating areas in perches and square feet (an old English document) ... I did have to look up the conversion for perches to feet, though I'm fine with acres and yards ...
My favourite is the ton / tonne / tonne. What a bloody mess that all is.
A (ton / tonne / metric tonne) is something you can't lift and don't want landing on your head. It doesn't matter exactly what definition you use. Also, more than one ton has exactly the same effect on you as one ton.
If you want to actually measure something, use kg.
It is instructive to note that kg is the unit used on containers.
Metric is the measurement for UN approved containment. Hence we package in 205 litre rather than 45 gallon drums.
WW3 is breaking out and the Monocled Mutineer is demanding a return to the Imperial system of measurement. Unspoofable, when one thinks about it.
Comments
There's doesn't seem to be any appetite for unnecessary war, even in the wilder parts of the Brexiter right.
Particularly since imperial measures have never actually gone away.
One of these days they will find a candidate who actually breaks that. But not with Le Pen, probably.
As it happens, 1 degree Newton is roughly 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which seems to equate to how temperatures are talked about in the US, "high 70s", or "low 60s", etc, which seems to prove that Newton was right all along, because no-one can perceive the difference between 65F and 64F, or even 17C and 18C.
It's metric measurements that seem to cause confusion.
In what industries could they meaningfully bring them back without incurring huge costs and making us a global laughing stock?
Does anyone under 50 know understand fractions of an inch? I sometimes watch this Canadian luthier on YouTube who expresses tiny measurements in both systems and it’s like ‘That’s 3mil, or 1000/264ths of an inch,’ or whatever bonkers fraction it is. Have you tried using imperial spanners?
It’s fantasy to think bringing them back in any serious way is going to work.
But they know that. It’s just about the headlines.
I was in a cafe the other day where I overheard some fella saying that gas prices were down to one thing and one thing only: Brexit. Which just isn't true. Of the things which could be laid at Brexit's door, gas prices are surely right down at the bottom of the list, below geopolitical events, international demand, government decisions on energy policy and infrastrcuture over the last 20 years, the weather...
Brexit will have an impact on economics, certainly. But compared to covid its impact is pretty small. And in all honesty, economically, I would rather be in the UK where we have moved beyond covid than in most of the EU where they have not. Could we have reached the same point within the EU? Sure - look at Denmark and Sweden. Would we? I doubt it.
And the culture war does need fighting. My view is that the forces of woke - who are small in number but culturally powerful - have the capacity to be hugely damaging to Britain and the west in general. But the imperial/metric battle isn't the field to fight on. There isn't a battle there to be won: we can drink our beer in pints, we can measure our speed in miles per hour, we can calculate our engineering in millimetres and kilograms. We can buy our meat in whatever units we choose. There is no battle there worth fighting; no enemy to take on.
https://youtu.be/RGCNW2KOtIE
Good background, but overtaken by events.
Unless that second one is a slang phrase for the Moggster. In which case the answer's no, because he's useless as a spanner, although he does a lot of screwing.
Second point - do I care much? Not really.
I don't even use them when cooking. I tend to just go with what looks about right. Mind, that may be why I'm not a very good cook.
The one exception is when making bread. How's this for geekishness? I put in a pound of bread flour, topped up to 450g with ordinary flour, which makes it just a little bit softer.
I do think that miles per gallon is daft when we buy petrol in litres.
Someone 5'11 and a bit can claim to be 6ft whereas someone 181cm isnt 183cm.
I was just testing to see who would notice...
It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, it’s performance. Like having crowns back on pint glasses. It’s pathetic.
But then, because it doesn't interest me, I've never actually asked anyone.
Slim
Svelte
High BMI
Normal size, or 'overweight' as the doctor calls it
Fat git
F*** me how can you even stand?
As for measures, the status quo - measuring distance in imperial and volume in metric - is bloody stupid. So lets not fight over changing it. Selling fuel in gallons - or at least co-pricing it - would be better than now.
But - and its a big but - better than now doesn't mean we should do it. Its bad enough being one of the last holdouts for miles. If we go back to daft imperial measure for stuff like gallons then we're just cutting ourselves off from the world even further.
If we're going down the full imperial route can we at least adopt US imperial and try to standardise? Otherwise we have measures that hardly anyone else does. Which hardly makes "global Britain" easier to trade with.
I do bread in metric because the ratio flour:water is a satisfying 2g:1 ml. Mind you Oz/fl Oz probably works the same
It’s my 44th birthday today. I was never taught imperial measurements. Decimalisation obviously happened a few years before I was born. The people who were taught it, who grew up surrounded by the Imperial measurements and florins, ha’pennies, tanners, they get smaller every day.
It’s not a serious proposal, it’s nostalgia. From the same tired old playbook as the Blitz spirit, Spitfires, all that shite.
Edit: the 'English' is because I'm not sure if Scots used the same perches at the time in question.
You can't say "but thats wrong" because the existing measures are made up anyway and non-standard to colony imperial.
As it happens, I can use either with equal facility and I can convert in my head (except apparently when measuring flour for bread) when I feel the need to, which happens only when I'm filling up the car and estimating the range I've got.
And everyone around me, insofar as they ever use anything, still seem to use imperial.
Edit - by the way, Happy Birthday. Hope you have a good one.
Before Geoffrey Howe was taken off the case.
If you want to actually measure something, use kg.
Drinks are liters and milliliters. Temperature is Celsius when it's cold, and farenheit when it's warm.
Oh just give me a metric spanner and a hammer.
But, because I'm a human rather than a robot, and I have parents, and grandparents, and exist alongside other people who grew up pre-metric, and have read the odd book from before 1974, I know how long a yard or an inch is; how heavy a pound is, how much a gallon is.
This feels a bit like the trope on Pointless of 'before my time'* - surely one picks these things up? There wasn't a year zero of metrification after which we started again and never mentioned the old units or things of old.
Metric is a system for calculations, and is wonderful for the purpose. But its words aren't much fun to say, and so the old measures persist in our speech and our habits. For anyone who enjoys ease of calculation and relishes language, this seems a perfectly acceptable circumstance.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tWSZxoi8ZU
(This may require explanation of Shakespearean slang.)
Just to be the man who walked 1242.2 miles to fall down at your door
Incidentally, being aware that an acre was a chain by a furlong enabled me for the first time to calculate roughly in my mind how many acres a property might be.
Thank goodness for Plimsoll.
WW3 is breaking out and the Monocled Mutineer is demanding a return to the Imperial system of measurement. Unspoofable, when one thinks about it.