This, quite bizarrely, was in the astrology column of the Daily Mirror!! It was
written by a certain John Michell:
It is a tragedy to lose something, or someone, and only then realise how much you
valued them.
It happens all the time in love. And it is happening now, as we are forced to part
company with our most ancient and precious possession - our units of measure, the
foot, mile, acre, and so on.
It is now known that our present British units were the standards behind all other
measures in the ancient world.
For example, 24 British miles equals 25 of the classical Greek miles.
This gives you the exact value of the Greek mile and of its 5,000th part-the Greek
foot-by which the Parthenon was built.
All these traditional units-Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian and others-are related to each
other by simple ratios. It was all one system, universally. Even across the
Atlantic, the Mexican pyramids were designed by the same units of measure as those of
Egypt.
The ancient units were fractions of the Earth's dimensions. One standard was its mean
circumference, which was equal to a tenth part of 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 English
miles. When the French tried to measure the Earth in order to establish their metre,
they got it wrong - and their system is based on error.
There is nothing political about this. (hmmmm) It plays no serious part in the debate
over Europe and the euro. It's just that our units are sacred in origin.
They measure the universe and the human body by the same standard, whereas the metre
has no natural meaning. That is why we traditionalists say, "Stand up for the foot!"
A vigorous campaign to preserve our measures is run by Vivian Lineacre of the British
Weights and Measures Association.
A year's membership of the association (including subscription to the Journal) is £10
to BWMA, 45 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh, EH7 5JX.
Regards,
Steve.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
