Metrication petition

[NB Alnwick]

Please take a look at this petition. The originator believes that the UK Government needs to apply for derrogation (that 'D' word again) to allow the continued advertisement of items in imperial measurements. This means that a one inch AF spanner will need to be described as a 25.4 mm spanner and I have no idea how Whitworth and BSP items will need to be described! Amazingly, this remarkable piece of legislation will also effect other countries - for example, the wheels of my old Citroen 2CV were always described as 15 inch and not as 0.381 metres - even in France!

 

Metrication Petition

 

Edited for spelling

Edited April 23, 2007 by NB Alnwick

[Keeping Up]

My boat was built to an Imperial size so it would fit into locks that were built to an Imperial size, and I intend it to remain that way. I've signed.

[BlueStringPudding]

Madness! Utter madness. I've signed.

[Graham and Jo]

I've signed it and will be passing it on round my classic car group. Cheers Graham

[Sir Nibble]

The originator believes

Source?

David Icke believes the world is run by lizard people who live beneath the earth, the pope thinks it's run by a man in the sky.

Sounds like made up eurosceptic scaremongering to me.

[Chris Lingwood]

The British weights and measures association seam worried...and they should know!

 

http://www.bwmaonline.com/Business%20-%20c...inst%202010.htm

 

I'd like a 1/4inch bsp thread...sorry 6.35 millimetre....oh lord

[NB Alnwick]

Source?

David Icke believes the world is run by lizard people who live beneath the earth, the pope thinks it's run by a man in the sky.

Sounds like made up eurosceptic scaremongering to me.

 

This is from the petition's originator:

 

Since 1995 we have been compelled to measure and price merchandise in metric units but allowes to show the imperial equivalent alongside. At the end of 2009 it will become illegal to make any mention of imperial units. The ban will apply to all products, packaging, advertisements, magazines, catalogues, etc.

 

The economic and social effects of this ban will be wide ranging. Industries which export world wide will have major problems - many parts of the world still employ imperial standards. Spare and replacement parts for existing equipment built to imperial standards will cease to be available - it will not be possible to package, advertise or catalogue such items. Thousands of citizens with interests in vintage vehicles, preserved railways, model engineering, etc. will be deprived of legal access to tools and materials to pursue their interests. Public opinion is firmly in favour of retaining the option to use imperial units of measure if they so wish.

 

You can view and sign the petition here:

 

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Metrication/

 

No harm in scepticism but if the petitioner is correct, the Government need to obtain a derrogation to retain our right to use Imperial measurements in advertisements and printed catalogues. In my view, right or wrong, there is no harm in letting No. 10 know how we feel. After all, we were too late with 'red diesel' . . .

[Sir Nibble]

You can view and sign the petition here:

Seen it, I have also googled the european directive and my understanding is that you will still be able to buy AF spanners so long as you don't want to buy them by the pound. Possibly, you may have to be content with a 1/2" spanner that is 150mm long rather than 6".

[BlueStringPudding]

I've signed it and will be passing it on round my classic car group. Cheers Graham

 

I've passed it round all my freelancers, work colleagues and past assistants:- the idea of costuming shows without 17 inch collars and without half inch bias binding is nuts! An actor's measurements are taken rounded off to an eighth of an inch and that's relevant when we buy our supplies from all tailors, costumiers, haberdashers... I don't fancy doing it all metrically.

 

 

Hey fellers: any of you fancy asking for a 43.18cm collar next time you buy a shirt??!?!? Let's see the expression on the shop assistant's face!?!?!

Edited April 25, 2007 by BlueStringPudding

[NB Phoenix]

the wheels of my old Citroen 2CV were always described as 15 inch and not as 0.381 metres - even in France!

 

I think a more accurate description would be................ redundant

 

 

Edit to add......... Click on picture!

Edited April 25, 2007 by NB Phoenix

[Sir Nibble]

I really don't want to come across as either pro or anti metrication, but we have to be sensibly adult about it. What was wrong with good old fashioned cubits and spans?

I don't fancy

Is that a sound basis for a system of measurement?

any of you fancy asking for a 43.18cm collar

Most of the world is metric, don't they wear shirts? Ever heard of a foriegner looking at our measurements with whistful longing?

It really doesn't matter what weights and measures are used so long as the product is right does it?

Does anyone still convert prices to £ /- and d in their head 'cos they don't understand "new money"?

[Moley]

Does anyone still convert prices to £ /- and d in their head 'cos they don't understand "new money"?

 

It's just too frightening to do it anymore.

 

I mean, seven shillings for a Mars bar! The world's gone crazy.

 

Nineteen-and-ninepence-halfpenny for a PINT of Newkie!

[BlueStringPudding]

Does anyone still convert prices to £ /- and d in their head

 

Yes - my mum still talks in terms of shillings and bob

 

Most of the world is metric

 

The U.S. is very much imperial and all my Asian suppliers (Pakistan, India, Thailand, China) use imperial. Are you sure it's not only Europe!?!?!

 

Incidentally, I'm not anti-Europe at all. But to make labelling in imperial "illegal" is overkill and an example of law being used for entirely the wrong thing. Surely?

 

Nineteen-and-ninepence-halfpenny for a PINT of Newkie!

 

 

"0.88 litres of your finest brew, stout yeoman of the bar, and here's 4 euro 76 cents for your trouble."

Edited April 25, 2007 by BlueStringPudding

[Grasshopper]

Holding on to existing measurements doesn't go far enough. Let's start a petition to get those that have gone out of use reinstated. Good traditional British measures such as:

 

Bag

Obscure unit of volume, equal to 24 gallons.

 

Barleycorn

Unit of length. Three to the inch. A very old measure, not used for centuries.

 

Bucket

Obscure unit of volume, equal to 4 gallons.

 

Butt

Unit of volume, usually for wine or beer. Can be 108 or 126 gallons, depending. No longer used.

 

Chain

Unit of length, equal to 22 yards, which is the length of a cricket pitch.

 

Clove

Obscure unit of weight, equal to 7 pounds (av.)

 

Ell

Unit of length. Very, very old. The English ell should be taken as 45 inches, or a yard and a quarter, and the Scots ell is 37 Scots inches, or 72.2 English inches. Very much not used.

 

Kilderkin

Obscure unit of volume, equal to 18 gallons.

 

Kip

Obscure unit of force - equal to 1000 pound-force.

 

Last

Very obscure unit of volume - equal to 640 gallons.

 

League

Unit of length. Equal to 3 miles, so a league at sea is different to a league on land. Much used by poets, but nobody else.

 

Link

Unit of length, there being 100 links to a chain. Virtually never seen these days.

 

Nail

Obscure unit of length, equal to 2 and a quarter inches.

 

Pace

Obscure unit of length. Equal to 2.5 feet.

 

Palm

Obscure unit of length. Equal to 3 inches.

 

Peck

Unit of volume, equal to 2 gallons. Not much in use these days.

 

Perch

Old unit of length - same as rod and pole. 16.5 feet.

 

Pole

Old unit of length - same as rod and perch. 16.5 feet.

 

Puncheon

Obscure unit of volume - equal to 70 gallons.

 

Rod

Unit of length; It is 16.5 feet, which is strange even by English standards. It is better to define it in terms of the rood.

 

Rope

Obscure unit of length - equal to 20 feet.

 

Rood

Unit of area; an area of 1 furlong long by 1 rod wide, or 1210 square yards. There are 4 roods to the acre.

 

Rope

Obscure unit of length - equal to 20 feet.

 

Sack

Obscure unit of weight, equal to 26 stones.

 

Seam

Obscure unit of volume, equal to 64 gallons.

 

Slug

Strange unit of weight - equal to 32.174 pounds (av.) - see poundal.

 

Span

Obscure unit of length - equal to 9 inches.

 

Tod

An obscure unit of weight - same as the quarter.

 

After all, we wouldn't want to change anything would we? Most unBritish................

[Guest]

Bloody EU again . Give them an inch and they take a mile.

[BlueStringPudding]

Bloody EU again . Give them an inch and they take a mile.

[NB Alnwick]

Chain Unit of length, equal to 22 yards, which is the length of a cricket pitch.

 

Hey thats not an old measurement!

 

Chains were still in regular use before I retired in April 2005 as were Miles

 

One Mile = 80 Chains

 

Now I know that BW and other government bodies would like to get rid of miles too but it won't be easy.

[BlueStringPudding]

After all, we wouldn't want to change anything would we? Most unBritish................

 

Is this discussion about not wanting to change or the futility of making something so inoffensive, unobtrusive and of no less cultural significance than a pint, illegal!?

 

That's what I don't understand - why illegal!?! Metric is already quoted as well or instead of imperial, so why make the remainder who use imperial in their lives/trades affected by this in terms of legality? Not to mention the costs of regaging machinery (are we really expecting shirt labels to say "43.18cm collar" - of course not, the whole system will be regaged), altering all packaging and labelling etc. Bonkers!

[NB Alnwick]

Bloody EU again . Give them an inch and they take a mile.

 

Did I hear you say give them 25.4 millimetres and they take 1.60934 kilometres?

Doesn't quite have the same ring does it?

[allybsc]

Source?

David Icke believes the world is run by lizard people who live beneath the earth, the pope thinks it's run by a man in the sky.

Sounds like made up eurosceptic scaremongering to me.

 

Silly snibble, David Icke is god, get out your turqouise shell suit and bow down to ask for forgiveness

[NB Alnwick]

An interesting story:

 

About eighteen months ago our trusty MGB developed a fault on the outskirts of Leicester and I needed a 7/8 inch AF socket to fix it - fortunately we had come to a halt just outside a very large branch of Halfords.

 

I couldn't find one on the shelf so I enquired at the parts counter. The answer was "sorry we don't do imperial sizes anymore - its all Metric" - your nearest equivilent is 22mm".

 

So I said "OK - I'll take one of those" - to which the assistant replied "what size ratchet is it for, three eighths or half inch".

 

The mind continues to boggle . . .

[Grasshopper]

Hey thats not an old measurement!

 

Chains were still in regular use before I retired in April 2005

Mmm. Yes. I was in two minds whether to include chains. But then I took the view that if you selected 100 people off the street and asked them to tell you the length of a chain........... But then given the state of education in this country that might not be a fair test. They probably couln't tell you how many metres were in a kilometre either...............

 

I withdraw chain from the list.........

 

That's what I don't understand - why illegal!?!

 

Well the general thrust of all legislation these days is to protect people from their own stupidity. So the idea is that if you allow people to sell using two different standards, people are too thick to do price comparisons and know if they are being cheated. And in fairness, most of them are.........

 

I used to work in the finance industry and loan rates used to be quoted in all sorts of readily understandable formats. But different formats so that was obviously too difficult for people to do comparisons. So they brought in a standard - Annual Percentage Rate (APR) which must be used. Now even people in the industry struggle to explain how the perecentage is derived (actually you don't, you just look it up off tables issued by the government). If you want a laugh, next time you are offered a loan at 10% APR (or whatever), ask the sales person to explain what the charges are 10% of..................... Watch the panic rise in their eyes.........

[Sir Nibble]

(are we really expecting shirt labels to say "43.18cm collar"

Of course not, They will say "43cm" . 0.18cm is less than 1/16", you would get a greater variation in your neck measurement by turning your head. You are the professional not me, but do you really make collars to a tolerance of 0.42%?

[John Orentas]

Am I the lone voice again. I was an engineer in the office equipment industry whilst the metrication of our currency was carried out. Have you any idea of the extra complication of carrying out mathematical calculations by mechanical means in Pounds, Shillings and Pence. As soon as metrication was complete, the processes and the machines that did the work was vastly simplified and we could then move on into the modern world.

 

A few years later I was a design engineer in the field of weighing equipment. We had Tons, Hundredweights, Pounds, Ounces and God knows what else. The entire industry again was metricated, it was painful at times but we then spoke the same language as the rest of the world, all those that matter anyway.

 

Now we have got that idiot market trader who for the sake of a bit of publicity keeps getting himself prosecuted for flogging his bananas pounds an ounces or pecks and perches or something equally stupid. Yes those silly housewives think he's wonderfull but I think we can do better than that.

 

History does show that at the end of the day there must be an element of compulsion, we will never convince that last 2% but surely we had had long enough now to get used to the power of ten by now. How long do we want it to go on for, yes everyone can point out anomalies we will always have those as long as the last Model 'T' car survives.

[Chris Lingwood]

An interesting story:

 

About eighteen months ago our trusty MGB developed a fault on the outskirts of Leicester and I needed a 7/8 inch AF socket to fix it - fortunately we had come to a halt just outside a very large branch of Halfords.

 

I couldn't find one on the shelf so I enquired at the parts counter. The answer was "sorry we don't do imperial sizes anymore - its all Metric" - your nearest equivilent is 22mm".

 

So I said "OK - I'll take one of those" - to which the assistant replied "what size ratchet is it for, three eighths or half inch".

 

The mind continues to boggle . . .

 

They still sell them in their socket sets! I'm sure they do....perhaps they don't separately though.

 

Its still a fair point though. If you make something (say ALL of the ratchets in the country) to 1/2' 3/8' 1/4' and then decide you you have to call a spade a garden excavation implement you end up with 12.7mm, 9.52500mm, 6.35mm, you can't start rounding things because that would make at least all the sockets and ratchets in this country (probably others as well) obsolete in one simple retarded manoeuvre.