Out with these foreign measurements

[Richard A]

So BoJo's reportedly to announce that imperial measurements are to be restored as part of the celebrations of the Platinum Jubilee. https://news.sky.com/story/platinum-jub ... s-12623318


Never mind that we don't actually have much of an Empire left anymore. And of course pubs have always served beer in pints and distances and speed limits on road signs have always been in miles - OK, our speed limits are slower than in much of Europe, but they're not THAT slow. The idea is to restore Tory support in areas of the Midlands and North that switched from Labour to Tory in the last election, the so-called Red Wall, but which are less enthusiastic now. (Although there may have been various reasons for the 2019 switch - not least the view many took of Jeremy Corbyn - the view in Westminster is that it was Brexit wot won it.)

But the point that BoJo and his team have missed is that if they go through with this, petrol at Sainsbury's will go from its current £1.68 per litre to £7.64 per gallon. That'll look good in the headlines!

[Arneb]

7.64 pounds? By Jove, that must be about 7 gn 5s 10 d in real money. The things those barbarians on the Continent made the Empire go through!

[Мастер]

and speed limits on road signs have always been in miles

I noticed that when you cross from the Irish republic into Northern Ireland, the speed limit units change. And cars rented in Dublin don't have "miles per hour" on the dashboard

[Мастер]

petrol at Sainsbury's will go from its current £1.68 per litre to £7.64 per gallon. That'll look good in the headlines!

I think they should sell it by weight instead of volume. That way, the price can be in units of pounds per pound.

[Richard A]

7.64 pounds? By Jove, that must be about 7 gn 5s 10 d in real money. The things those barbarians on the Continent made the Empire go through!

Arneb, do not give BoJo - or Jacob Rees-Mogg, who I strongly suspect is behind this - ideas!

[Richard A]

I noticed that when you cross from the Irish republic into Northern Ireland, the speed limit units change. And cars rented in Dublin don't have "miles per hour" on the dashboard

And the commitment of the Ulster Prods, who until recently ran Northern Ireland, to being apart from the rest of Europe was clear. When you landed at Dover, there was a board that told you the speed limits in both mph and km/h. As you say, Mactep, the Welcome to Northern Ireland sign just says "Speed limits in miles per hour". Implication: "you work it out!"

[Lianachan]

Ireland, and Scotland when the time comes, should start to drive on the right like the rest of Europe. We can have those cross shaped things for switching lanes in Scalextric installed at all border crossings.

[Arneb]

7.64 pounds? By Jove, that must be about 7 gn 5s 10 d in real money. The things those barbarians on the Continent made the Empire go through!

Arneb, do not give BoJo - or Jacob Rees-Mogg, who I strongly suspect is behind this - ideas!

You remember, of course, how your mother told me about the pre-reform currency units, and we all had a laugh at the quirkiness of the past?

[g-one]

We can have those cross shaped things for switching lanes in Scalextric installed at all border crossings.

That would be awesome. Especially if they could do it in a roundabout.

There are practical limits to changing systems. We went to metric in 1970. For some things it is great, other things it really messes up.
Like on the prairies, where the land is divided up into 1 mile square grids. All the road systems are built on mile roads and the property is based on 1 square mile 'sections' being 640 acres. Now try to convert that to Km's and Hectares.
On top of that, many of the small towns are spaced 6 miles apart, based on the old standard for stagecoach stops.

[Richard A]

I have heard of such crossings. There's apparently a particularly impressive one between Hong Kong and Shenzhen involving flyovers, although I haven't actually seen it as the one time I did that journey I went by train. And there are others on borders between former British and Portuguese colonies in Africa.

[Lance]

That way, the price can be in units of pounds per pound.

Wouldn't meat already be like that?

[Мастер]

That way, the price can be in units of pounds per pound.

Wouldn't meat already be like that?

I don't know. Do they do it in pounds per pound, or pounds per ounce?

[Мастер]

I have heard of such crossings. There's apparently a particularly impressive one between Hong Kong and Shenzhen involving flyovers, although I haven't actually seen it as the one time I did that journey I went by train. And there are others on borders between former British and Portuguese colonies in Africa.

I have absolutely crossed between HK and Shenzhen by vehicle (usually I do it by foot), but I can't really remember how it worked.

That area is really rugged, the roads are often quite impressive even when they're not changing sides.

When you say "by train", do you mean the MTR up to the Shenzhen border, then the Shenzhen metro, or the relatively new high-speed train from West Kowloon station (which is east of Kowloon station ) into Shenzhen?

[Мастер]

Ireland, and Scotland when the time comes, should start to drive on the right like the rest of Europe. We can have those cross shaped things for switching lanes in Scalextric installed at all border crossings.

Had to look up "Scalextric". At first I thought it was some kind of pun maybe involving something about "Scotland" and "Brexit", even though that shouldn't change the side of the road on which anyone drives.

Anyway, it seemed to me in Ireland, most of the roads were narrow enough that you just drove down the middle until someone came the other way.

[Richard A]

When you say "by train", do you mean the MTR up to the Shenzhen border, then the Shenzhen metro, or the relatively new high-speed train from West Kowloon station (which is east of Kowloon station ) into Shenzhen?

Neither - the train that went, at least at that time, from Hung Hom (in downtown Kowloon, but well to the east of both Kowloon and West Kowloon stations) to Guangzhou Tianhe. It stopped at Shenzhen, although I continued on to Tianhe itself.

[Heid the Ba]

petrol at Sainsbury's will go from its current £1.68 per litre to £7.64 per gallon. That'll look good in the headlines!

I think they should sell it by weight instead of volume. That way, the price can be in units of pounds per pound.

*pushes specs up nose*
We’ll, actually you would have to allow for the temperature as liquids change volume. So you get more bang for your buck on a cold day than a hot.

[Мастер]

When you say "by train", do you mean the MTR up to the Shenzhen border, then the Shenzhen metro, or the relatively new high-speed train from West Kowloon station (which is east of Kowloon station ) into Shenzhen?

Neither - the train that went, at least at that time, from Hung Hom (in downtown Kowloon, but well to the east of both Kowloon and West Kowloon stations) to Guangzhou Tianhe. It stopped at Shenzhen, although I continued on to Tianhe itself.

I’ve been to Hung Hom station a bunch of times. I don’t know how I never realised there were cross-border services from there, I only knew about the MTR.

[Мастер]

petrol at Sainsbury's will go from its current £1.68 per litre to £7.64 per gallon. That'll look good in the headlines!

I think they should sell it by weight instead of volume. That way, the price can be in units of pounds per pound.

*pushes specs up nose*
We’ll, actually you would have to allow for the temperature as liquids change volume. So you get more bang for your buck on a cold day than a hot.

That is an issue selling it by volume (like by the gallon), but does that matter much, with the gasoline usually coming from underground storage tanks?

[g-one]

*pushes specs up nose*
We’ll, actually you would have to allow for the temperature as liquids change volume. So you get more bang for your buck on a cold day than a hot.

That is an issue selling it by volume (like by the gallon), but does that matter much, with the gasoline usually coming from underground storage tanks?

Seems it is somewhat of an issue. Gas pumps have built in correction factors. Here they are corrected to 15 deg.C as we range from -30C to +30C so that is quite a swing.
https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/mc-mc.nsf ... 00129.html

[Richard A]

You get up to +30 in summer??

[Arneb]

Oh they do, ever more often, and it's not pretty. But given that more than half of Canada's population lives South of Paris, maybe that's not too surprising.

[g-one]

That Lytton event was very extreme. Very scary.
Above 35 is fairly rare. Consecutive days above 30 is a fairly common measurement of 'heatwaves'.