The TABD has made much of allowing exports to the US to be allowed dual-labelling. I thought I'd post an interesting observation. Today we visited the 'Nature in Art' permanent exhibition near where I live in Gloucestershire. They have a small shop selling various cards, posters, etc. as well as artists' materials. Among these are drawing pads and paints. I'd seen paints given as an example of the sort of product that required dual-labels as they were heavily dependent on the US export market, and indeed all the paints by UK firms included the floozy equivalent (usually of a round metric size). However, they also sold paints by an Italian company, and these were metric-only. They were obviously intended to be exported as they had something to say they were exempt from some US (toxicity?) label requirement. I was also disappointed to see the drawing pad had prominent (and rational) inch sizes, as well as the meaningless '140 lbs'. The metric sizes and g/m2 were given less prominence and in smaller font. I intend e-mailing the manufacturers to complain that I don't see why they should label their products with one particular country in mind. Web sites: Italian company: http://www.maimeri.it/ UK paints & pads: http://www.daler-rowney.co.uk/ http://www.winsornewton.com/ -- Chris KEENAN UK Metrication: http://www.metric.org.uk/ UK Correspondent, US Metric Association
