Many of us have probably bought a diary for 2018 recently. Ronnie Cohen takes a look at the conversion tables found at the front of many sold in the UK.
Tag: imperial
Straight bananas and the metric system – the EU legacy?
With Brexit still dominating the news, Ronnie Cohen looks at one of the biggest obstacles to completing our transition to the metric system: its perceived link to the European Union.
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MOTD writes metric but speaks imperial
At last, the General Election campaign is over. And now, as we wait for the results, Ronnie Cohen looks at something completely different: Match of the Day. Or is it?
Global Britain or Imperial isolation?
On 29 March, Sir Tim Barrow, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union, handed a signed six-page letter from the British Prime Minister to the President of the European Council, invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and confirming the UK’s intention to leave the EU. So where do we go from here?
Then there were two
We ask if it is time for supporters of so-called British weights and measures to come to terms with the fact that only two systems of weights and measures are recognised world wide, and British aka Imperial is not one of them.
Supplementary Indications revisited
Supplementary indications received a reprieve in 2007, and will now, subject to the Brexit deal negotiated with the EU, need to serve only the needs of the UK economy. Ronnie Cohen wonders where US influence is likely to lead us.
The influence of traffic signs goes way beyond transport
During the past few weeks, there have been many news stories about the removal or modification of certain metric traffic signs by an elderly gent from Huntingdon and his friends. Their inability to see beyond the narrow remit they have set themselves has become very clear. In this article, Ronnie Cohen puts forward a contrary view.
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Quirks of US Customary Units
Some would argue that the decline of manufacturing industry in the USA contributed to Mr Trump’s surprising victory in the Presidential election*. Others might say that manufacturing’s decline was due in part to the tardy adoption of the international system of measures. Here we look at some of the quirks of ‘English measures’, a throw back to the USA’s colonial past and still widely used in America today.
Brexit – where next?
Our series of articles on Brexit concludes with speculation on the future for the UK and its measurement muddle.
How the UK created a measurement muddle
The series of four articles on the outcome of the EU referendum continues with a look at how the current measurement muddle came about.
Metric Views 