On 9th June 1977, the Queen officially opened the Silver Jubilee Walkway, a 21 km walking trail around central London to mark her Silver Jubilee, or 25 years on the throne. Thirty-three years later, work is under way to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with a new 60 km walking trail, the Jubilee Greenway, providing walkers with a kilometre to walk for every year of the Queen’s reign.
Continue reading “60 km Jubilee Greenway to be signed in imperial”
The new coalition Government claims to be determined to clear up the “mess” left behind by the previous Government. So it is notable that Her Majesty’s gracious speech included no proposals to tackle one of the biggest “messes” of all – the intractable muddle of incompatible measurement units with which her UK (but not other Commonwealth) subjects have to struggle.
Two recent Channel 4 Dispatches programmes entitled “Kids Don’t Count” sought to demonstrate just that. But if you saw the programmes and are a regular reader of Metric Views, you may have wondered if the programmes overlooked the real problem. Continue reading “Kids don’t count”
The makeup of the new coalition government and its policy programme are now broadly clear. How will it affect the prospects for progress on completing metrication?
Continue reading “Prospects for metrication progress under the new government”
A recent exchange of e-mails between Ezra, a reader of MetricViews in the USA, and Tony, in the UK, suggests that recent years have seen changes for the better in weather reporting in the both the UK and Canada. Do other readers of MetricViews share Tony’s viewpoint? Continue reading “An improvement in the weather”
A recent correspondent expressed the wish “Let’s hope the new (Conservative) government puts a stop to metrication as far as is practically possible.” Naturally, we disagree with this sentiment – but, whoever wins the election, what could they actually do to turn the clock back? and, realistically, what would they do?
Continue reading “Could a future Government reverse metrication?”
The recent consultation on so-called “calories” on menus, together with the launch of more new models of electric cars has prompted these thoughts on the dysfunctional way in which we measure energy and power. This muddle reflects a lack of understanding of basic science and prevents people from making useful comparisons. We should standardise on the joule (J) and the watt (W).
Continue reading “How should we measure energy (and power)?”
The Department for Transport, who once described metrication of road signs as “a waste of taxpayers’ money”, have themselves been condemned by a House of Commons Select Committee for wasting £71 million on building 66 motorcycle testing stations in order that learner motorcyclists can take the manoeuvring elements of the driving test at the requisite 50 km/h (kilometres per hour), which would be illegal on quiet residential roads in urban areas where tests used to be conducted in the UK. Continue reading “DfT imperialists waste more taxpayers’ money”
As a bizarre consequence of the failure to switch to metric speed limits, the Department for Transport (DfT) is proposing to raise the motorway speed limit of coaches and buses from 60 mph (96.6 km/h) to 65 mph (104.6 km/h). That’s 4.6 % faster than the 100 km/h maximum speed that their speed limiters allow.
Continue reading “Crazy proposal to raise speed limits above speed limiter settings”
The very worthy proposal of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that menus should state energy values is undermined by its failure to use proper measurement units. UKMA has responded by advocating joules rather than so-called “calories” (whatever they may be).
Metric Views 