On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:38:27 -0500, "Duncan Bath" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Thank you for responding to my note. We, in Canada, have been trying for >decades >to rid ourselves of that mixture of units we [many of us] grew up with (for >me, it was in the midst of a sea of acres out east of Calgary, Alberta). >One of our problems has been our proximity to the United States - many of >them can't bring themselves to expend the effort required to adopt a SYSTEM >of measures. Despite its size and importance, many in the U.S. have >trouble realizing that its population is less than 5% of that of the world - >a world that is, largely, SI. > >I detect a tendancy amongst some in the U.K. to demonize "Brussels" when >the real 'enemy' is the rest of the world. Excellent letter, Duncan! You might care to point out to dr Whittaker that it was Mrs Thatcher's government that signed up to the 1989 Directive. The fact that we were able to negotiate derogations on the use of imperial for roads, acres, and (returnable) pints of milk show that we did agree to it. You might like to tell him that the EU did not make criminal offence to use non-metric: the penalties are part of UK legislation (and have been for a long time). EU legislation is not binding on individuals, only the member states' governments, who then have to out in place the necessary legislation to effect the directive. It is UK law that is binding on the traders, not the EU law. Chris -- Metrication information: http://www.metric.org.uk/ UK legislation, EC Directives, Trading Standards links and more Pro-metric mailing list now available.
