I've just been watching News 24 who are reporting that Neil Kinnock says we should scrap the mile and adopt kilometres instead. Go swing on it, Neil. Impeccable judgement as ever. I'm sure that'll be a real votecatcher. The residents of Cambridgeshire village Six Mile Bottom will no doubt look forward to being renamed Six Kilometre Bottom!
UPDATE: Yes, thanks to all those who have pointed out is should be Nine Point Six Kilometre Bottom!
FURTHER RANDOM THOUGHT: If harmonisation is the reason for this move, then shouldn;t we all switch to driving on the right?
Iain - Shouldn't that be 9.6 kilometre bottom!
ReplyDeleteYou really can't blame Kinnock for being in favour of all things European,after all he and his wife have enjoyed a fabulous lifestyle at the expense of the taxpayer these past 15 years - with wondrous pension benefits still to come!
ReplyDeleteWasn't he also in favour of scrapping a few other things in the past.... our membership of the EEC as it then was, the Lords......
ReplyDeleteSeemed to change his mind on those though didn't he!
Surely that should be Nine-Point-Six Kilometre Bottom
ReplyDeleteThat would be Nine Kilometre Bottom I think!
ReplyDeleteer...that would be 9.66 Kilometre Bottom!
ReplyDeleteThat'd be Nine point Six Kilometre Bottom.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea by Kinnock!
ReplyDeleteKinnock? The bloke is a joke.I wish he was still leading the Labour party.
ReplyDeleteJust the sort of comments I would expect from right wing 'little Englanders' it is nothing to do with "typical left-wing federalism", it is to do with hamony of measurement; it is a bloody crazy system of the mixture of imperial and metric meaasurments at present. And I would like to correct zoso; it as not 'Red Ken' but Neil Kinnock aka "The Welsh Windbag"...
ReplyDeleteIt would be renamed '10 kilometre bottom' actually, mind you I could be the first to join the 'kilometre high club'
ReplyDeleteThats not the whole of it.
ReplyDeleteThe Kinnock's Daughter is now on the EU payroll, as is their Daughter in law.
Their Son is a Little Englander, who works for The UK State.
Come on Iain!
ReplyDeleteOne mile, er that would be eight furlongs, or 80 chains or three hundred and twenty poles, or one Thousand Seven Hundred and sixty yards. A yard is of course three feet or 36 inches. So naturally it makes perfect sense to drive on the motorway at 560 furlongs an hour.
Of course, I was actually taught this stuff, but the metric system is a load more logical, and it is what we use for virtually everything else. All this "its a federalist plot" is just garbage.
I don't care if I drive at 160 kph, or 160,000 metres ph or 1,600,000 centimetres ph or even 1,600,000,000 mm ph. At least its logical and it is what our kids have been learning for nearly thirty years.
Inconvenient as it may be for Iain (and zoso - is he real, or just one of those Ric Mayall jokes - Malcolm, eu-serf etal) Neil Kinnock is not the only person calling for this. Former Deputy Tory Prime Minister, Maggie's very own cuddly bundle of fun, Lord Geoffrey Howe is right up there calling for the same thing. Boy, wish he was still Tory Deputy Leader!! Perhaps I should write a "Former Tory Deputy PM calls for Scrap The Mile" posting and not mention Kinnock at all. In the interests of political accuracy, of course.
ReplyDeleteBob, welcome back, you've been missed! Now, strictly in the interests of accuracy, Lord Howe only made this comments this morning on the Today programme -I didn't hear them. But I disagree with him just as much as with Kinnock. So come on then. Do you think we should drive on the right?
ReplyDeleteWe should be looking to do more and more on the Right if you ask me!
ReplyDeleteThink of the economic implications as well, nearly every road sign would need altering !! overnight ?? mind you maybe the EU would pay for it all !!
ReplyDeleteApparently the metric system was meant to have been brought in before I was born. Over 25 years later, I still have to use a mangled mish-mash of measurements because people didn't want to change from the units they'd used all their lives.
ReplyDeleteSo on the same principle, I argue we should now keep using a bizarre range of different units, since being confused about the number of fluid kilos in a stone etc is all I've ever been used to.
Do I sniff the good old politics of envy in those embittered comments about my old mate Neil Kinnock?
ReplyDeleteBring back the rod, pole or perch say I; these new politically-correct furlongs have brought this once proud nation to its knees......
The Metric system a lot more logical? Don't be silly. The Imperial system is actually based on real things, like the length of one's foot, for example.
ReplyDeleteIain, a friend of mine in Dublin said they were so pro-European they were going to trial driving on the right. They were going to start with lorries and buses, and if that worked they would switch everybody.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Kinnock on almost everything... but not as much as I disagree with Howe on everything.
Don't forget the last 54 metres, Iain, you don't want the villagers thinking they're shortchanged :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a stupid, STUPID idea. I've was always taught metric at school. Do I use it? Yeah, like a parachute from a ground floor building.
Imperial is far better. Long live Britain's awkward measurements!
I was also taught metric at school and never imperial (other than a few conversion formulas in algebra). And the result is I don't have a clue about what a "pound of potatoes" means, how long a mile is or so forth.
ReplyDeleteLet's have one consistent standard rather than a mismash. Metrication is more logical because it works in the same numeric base as the number system. I'm sure people resisted decimalisation but that happened - let's complete the task.