A couple UK articles....
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2001 The Telegraph Group Limited
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
April 22, 2001, Sunday
SECTION: Pg. 22
LENGTH: 174 words
HEADLINE: Laws of nature are not subject to repeal
BODY:
The former minister, Neil Hamilton, should realise that, in dealing with
weights and measures ("I could have saved metric martyr", Letters, April
15), we are in the realm of Laws of Nature rather than laws devised by
politicians. When a grocer in Sunderland places bananas on his weighing
scales, they obey the same laws as the apple falling from a tree that
inspired that great English scientist Isaac Newton or, indeed, a man-made
satellite in orbit.
The International Standard (SI) system of measurement acknowledges the
contribution made by British scientists by having three key units named
after individuals, namely Watt (power), Joule (energy) and Newton (force).
Can we raise our sights above kilograms (mass) and metres (length) and get
away from the notion that a foreign system of units is being foisted upon
us?
Politicians repealed the Corn Laws; they do not have the power to repeal
Newton's Laws of Motion nor the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Brian Wileman
Brigg, Lincolnshire
[PS]Features: [ES]
Letter to the Editor:
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2001 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London)
April 21, 2001, Saturday London Edition 1
SECTION: BACK PAGE - WEEKEND FT; Pg. 22
LENGTH: 885 words
HEADLINE: BACK PAGE - WEEKEND FT: SO FAREWELL TO.. Imperial measures: While
Britain's system dates from the Romans, continental Europe embraced
Napoleon's ideas. Confusion has reigned for long enough, says Nicholas
Foulkes
BYLINE: By NICHOLAS FOULKES
BODY:
A court ruling in Sunderland that Steven Thoburn, a greengrocer, was guilty
of a crime when selling 1lb of bananas, rather than 1kg of bananas, is the
sort of story that says so much about the Great Britain of the early 21st
century.
Depending on one's view, his refusal to switch from imperial to metric
measures is either a Ruritanian storm in a Lilliputian teacup or a
scandalous infringement of freedom of choice. Many see it as the death knell
of the imperial system of weights and measures, but in reality the bell has
been tolling for pounds and ounces, quarts and gallons for years.
The death sentence was passed when Britain joined the European Community in
1972, when Thoburn was a schoolboy. During the past three decades, while he
grew up and embraced the calling of purveyor of fruit and veg, imperial
measures have been waiting more or less patiently on Death Row.
Now, Thoburn's bananas have become a cause cele bre and he is known to
Eurosceptics as the "metric martyr" or "the Sunderland One".
He is just the sort of underdog that Britain likes, and some say he is being
considered for use in Conservative party propaganda come the general
election.
Meanwhile, a prime ministerial spokesman has pointed out that the
legislation forbidding Thoburn, and traders like him, from selling loose
goods in imperial quantities originated with a European directive of 1989,
which was introduced to Britain in 1994 under a Tory government.
If British sovereignty is to be one of the main issues on which the coming
election is to be fought, then a bunch of bananas is just the sort of issue
to which the entire electorate can relate.
Yet there was something poignant about the photograph of Thoburn holding his
bananas in one hand and in the other a hand-written sign reading "Best
Bananas 25p 1lb". As he posed for this image, he might have considered
himself a doughty champion of imperial standards - which indeed he was.
Except they were not British Empire standards. The abbreviation of lb is
derived from the Latin word libra- the Roman pound which was divided into
unciae (hence ounces).
The Roman system was in turn derived from the Greek system of weights and
measures, including "fingers" and "Olympic Cubits", which sound uncannily
close to the earlier Egyptian cubit - which was the most widely used form of
linear calibration in the ancient Mediterranean.
The Egyptian cubit, based on the length from the fingertips to elbow - the
standard length of about 20 1/2in was enshrined in a black granite master
cubit - sounds simple enough, but was further divided into a fiendish tangle
of fractions of a cubit: spans, hands, palms, t'sers, digits, right down to
1/448th of a cubit. Just try using the cubit next time you are out shopping
for a length of fabric in a Sunderland market.
Given a system such as the Egyptian cubit and its companion weight system of
"kites", "debens" and "seps", further complicated by the fact that over time
a kite weighed anything from about 5g to 30g, it is not difficult to imagine
that by the Dark Ages, Europe was working on a variety of different systems
cannibalised from those left by various ancient empires.
Apparently Charlemagne attempted a form of European standardisation of
measures in the early 9th century and, in a result that would hearten
Thoburn and his supporters, failed.
By the later Middle Ages, some sort of uniformity had been worked out in
England, with a system of perches, yards, feet, inches and barley corns;
which, with the addition of little idiosyncracies such as chains (22 yards)
and links, as well as wine gallons, ale gallons and corn gallons, remained
intact until the Weights and Measures Act of 1824 tidied up the system.
While Britain and its empire got behind the Weights and Measures Act of
1824, continental Europe was going metric.
French statesman, Talleyrand, raised the subject in 1790 at a meeting of the
then newly formed National Assembly, and by 1799 the metric system was a
reality that was imposed upon the rest of Europe along with the Code
Napoleon by the eponymous emperor of the French.
But even Boney had a problem selling it and issued a decree allowing
parallel usage of the medieval system. By 1840 the metric system had
prevailed although Napoleon did not live to see its triumph.
It would seem to be a fact that the dominant cultural and economic forces
dictate the system of weights and measures and when Britain ceased to be an
imperial power, its ability to impose a system of measurement ceased with
it.
Only the US would seem to have the commercial force, or the necessary mass
of cultural inertia, to resist metrication. Perversely, some of its weights
and measures are more antiquated than those under threat in Britain: the US
gallon is the Queen Anne's Gallon, which Britain threw out in 1824, while
the US bushel is based on a unit of measurement from the 15th century.
But if science is the lingua franca of tomorrow, then it seems that the
future is metric. Boffins might even suggest that as well as kilograms we
start calibrating things with "moles". The mole is a unit of substance that
has a number of chemical units - atoms, ions, etc.
The impact of the mole on banana sales in northern England is too
cataclysmic to contemplate.
