The world is a crazy, mixed-up place. Confirmation of this can be seen in the way we measure things, certainly here in the UK anyway. It’s quite indicative of how we as a country sit within Europe too… not quite willing to thow ourselves into the melting-pot whole-heartedly, but not wanting to be left out of all the fun either..
Imperial measument is bonkers. I speak with absolutely no authority at all, but really, it’s all over the place. Do you know how many yards are in a mile? 1760 apparently. (Yes, I had to google that). I can’t let my brain confuse itself anymore by trying to remember another meaningless four-digit number, my life is way too full of them already.
Metric is cool. Metric is level-headed, logical and sensible. Do you have ten fingers? Can you can divide and multiply by ten? If so then basically, you’re sorted – welcome to the metric system. Easy.
In truth life in Britain is a hotch-potch. If you were weighing cheese or parcels you’d use grams, for sure. If you were weighing yourself you’d use stones and pounds. I travel in miles (it’s 70 miles to London). I fill my car up with litres of petrol (seems cheaper that way). Being a nation obsessed with the weather, it’s no surprise that we adopted Celcius early on, it’s all I can remember. Although right now it’s cloudy and 15°C, so it hasn’t actually improved anything.
I couldn’t tell you the relationship between a litre and a gallon without googling it… but to be fair, I’ve never needed to. If I needed to – if I measured things for a living, I’d embrace millilitres and metres to my bosom and be thankful for easier sums. I reassure myself that important people such as doctors, bomb disposal experts, hairdressers etc, give themselves the best chance of success by keeping it simple and keeping it metric… I’m sure that’s the case.
You’d think all this would be confusing. You’d think that this unholy mix of units would, by now, have resulted in some infamous misinterpretations and comical results (Millimeters? This house should be 30 FEET tall! ). But somehow it works. If it stays all mixed up and crazy, I can live with that. But if I had to choose one over the other, I’d go for metric every time – but ‘doing 100’ down the motorway just wont be as exciting!
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