Somewhere I have kept a rather old cutting from the front page of the Daily Express of Sept 1994.
It declared that the previous August had been the driest month since records began with a months rainfall of only 6.1m.
I said to myself, 'Oh really, that is about 20 foot of water'.
I presumed they had meant 6.1mm which is 1/4inch of water.
I used to keep as many of these howlers whenever I saw them and used that cutting and others to tease all the metric imbeciles I met.
I used to point out that the misprinted 6.1m could be metres, centimetres or millimetres but we would never be able to fathom
(sorry) it out correctly. If the report had been printed in Imperial measure there would be no way that 1/4 inch could ever be misprinted as anything else and certainly not as 20 foot of water.
Another good one was the report of diesel cars producing 150kg of carbon soot every Kilometre.
That computes as 330lbs per half mile. Yep I thought, another newspaper calculation that is impossible to retread back and recalculate. Did they mean 150kg every 100km or 1000km or did they mean 150g per km or 100km or 1000km... or or or...
It was always bollox.
(yes, I know, I ought to get out more often)
There is a Time Team special on tonight about Richard III.
They like their metric measures, Tony Robinson was talking in kilometres on the Sunday program yesterday.
It is easier to speak in Imperial,
Inches is easier that Millimetres
Feet easier than metres
Yards easier than metres,
Miles easier than Kilometres.
and as for buying petrol by the litre..where does a litre get you.. it is like buying beer by the teacup.
Rant over.