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Foinavon

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Now that the EU has finally abandoned plans to enforce the metric system on the UK. Would there be any chance of ordnance survey going back to using miles and in particular using feet for height? How many of you when looking at ordnance survey map information don't perform mental calculations to get the data in a form we can actually process? I am not completely against the metric system, I work in engineering and always use it in that context. However as far as distances and heights are concerned nearly everyone uses imperial don't they?

Edited by Foinavon
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I don't know......

I'm an Engineer, I'm in my 40's - and I always use Metric. It's what I was taught at school, and it's what I use at work - but it's no great hardship to guesstimate an imperial measurement in the field if I'm caching with pre-decimalisation throwbacks who insist on using archaic imperial units..... :huh:;)

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I don't know......

I'm an Engineer, I'm in my 40's - and I always use Metric. It's what I was taught at school, and it's what I use at work - but it's no great hardship to guesstimate an imperial measurement in the field if I'm caching with pre-decimalisation throwbacks who insist on using archaic imperial units..... :huh:;)

 

I'm in my 30's so I was born after decimalisation. I think at our school we were taught both systems. I think that the acid test is what settings you have on your Geocaching.com profile. Don't tell me you find out how many kilometeres a cache is from your house. Come on admit it I bet you have them on imperial. B)

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Impetric... lol, I like that!!

 

I must admit, Foinavon and I are both in our mid 30's , and I can vouch that we were probably taught the same too...

 

I know I was taught cm / m / km in school, yet my parents worked in miles and inches and feet, so that probably is why I use both.

 

I like cm / mm for small measurements and miles and feet for longer measurements - don't ask me why, cos I really don't have a clue!

 

I have my GPS in feet - just because I like it that way!!!

Edited by HazelS
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Having involvement in the building trade I have learnt to be totally impetric B)

 

Like the term, which is new to me although I too work in the construction industry.

 

I'm 41, taught metric at school but given a grounding in imperial...when serving my apprenticeship, college was 100% metric and the old guys at work all used imperial. ;)

 

I regularly use a combination...i.e. 1M x 8'. B)

 

Seems to be round numbers that do it for me..

 

If a panel is 300mm I won't see it as 11 3/4" ....it's 300mm

 

Likewise if its 12" I won't see 305mm... its a foot.

 

I can mix and match to suit myself ,or work in either depending who I'm working with.

 

Handy when dealing with our friends across the pond. :huh:

 

My GPSr is set up in Imperial units because I changed it,unlike "Grandad" who's stuck in metric and doing the conversions in his head because he can't suss out how to alter the settings. B)

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Impetric - love that. I work in impetric too.

I drive and walk in miles and hills are measured in feet. Strangely, I think I'd like to see short distances measured in metres - "The cache is 50m from this point."

 

I think I need a lie-down.

 

I can get lost whichever system I use so it makes no difference. :huh:

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What's this metric thing everyone's talking about? Have I missed something?

 

:huh: It's a set of measurements that were brought in over 30 years ago to replace archaic terms such as mile, yard, foot, inch, furlong, rod, league, perch, chain, and link - that apparently the majority of stone circle builders and archers who also cache are having a hard time accepting....... ;)

Edited by keehotee
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What's this metric thing everyone's talking about? Have I missed something?

 

:huh: It's a set of measurements that were brought in over 30 years ago to replace archaic terms such as mile, yard, foot, inch, furlong, rod, league, perch, chain, and link - that apparently the majority of stone circle builders and archers who also cache are having a hard time accepting....... ;)

 

Don't forget those who cook! Admittedly that's more pounds and ounces than feet and inches but I love imperial measurements just because of their outward randomness!

If I could I'd be using knuts, sickles and galleons!!! B)

 

(Im in my early thirties if anyone's keeping score...)

 

TheWife

HoweFamily

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What's this metric thing everyone's talking about? Have I missed something?

 

B) It's a set of measurements that were brought in over 30 years ago to replace archaic terms such as mile, yard, foot, inch, furlong, rod, league, perch, chain, and link - that apparently the majority of stone circle builders and archers who also cache are having a hard time accepting....... B)

 

So, the metric system, developed in the 18th century isn't archaic? :huh:;)

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Yep - I use impetric too - with a bit more of a leaning to metric. I'm in my early 30's - maybe that 5 years difference makes all the difference!! :huh: My mate who was in the same science and maths classes in school though use imperial measurements. Feet, yards, pounds and Fahrenheit. I use cm, metres, kilos and Celsius.

 

Thinking about going out and about, I use metres for heights of mountains. Use metres on my GPSr which is handy with the OS doing kilometre squares. But use miles on long distances - like how far from north Wales to Somerset event?

 

Maybe despite all the arguing and debate that's been going on, we're just happy to use both systems and use whatever gets that person results.

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All these people in their early thirties.... shows that geocaching is just for big kids. Especially when you think when you tell other people about this bizarre hobby you have, you nearly always use the debate "And you find some treasure at the end with some little trinkets in, which always nice for the kids to swap." Who's kidding who? :huh:

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So, the metric system, developed in the 18th century isn't archaic?

 

Not when you compare it to the inch, the foot, the yard, the rod, the pole, the perch, the furlong, the mile and the league, which are all anglo saxon in origin, and standardised in the Magna Carta in 1215.....

 

Where would we be without the anglo saxons? They gave us some very versatile words which have been used many a time while caching...... :huh:

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Now that the EU has finally abandoned plans to enforce the metric system on the UK. Would there be any chance of ordnance survey going back to using miles and in particular using feet for height?

 

We hope not for distance .

After years of walking using metric maps we think in kilometres for assessing how much time it it take to walk from A to B .

And we plot the location of caches on the map manually using brit grid co-ords and think that is so much easier with the squares divided into kilometres .

 

 

(aged 58 and 61)

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I assume the original question is mischevious as there's no reason all why the OS should change - after all the OSGB grid is in km.

 

Personally, I'm a child of the 60s/70s and as impetric as the rest:

 

Short distances feet and metres(!)

Walking distances - km (but understand miles)

Driving distances - miles because of roadsigns (unless abroad of course - then km)

Spot heights etc. metres. haven't a clue about feet.

Weights, metric everything except for people (stone) - apart from my own weight that is, and I know that in kg but not stone. Weights in lbs mean absolutely nothing to me.

Liquids pints (beer) gallons (watering cans) litres/ml (everything else)

Temperatures Celcius, but have a rough idea of Farenheit for warm temps, no idea for cold ones.

Geocaching profile in km I think.

 

As a former distance runner I used to pass the time on training runs converting my pace and speed to/from miles or km per hr and min per km or mile.

 

PS I got 4/5 for imperial (lbs in a Ton???) and 5/5 for metric BBC quiz

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I assume the original question is mischevious as there's no reason all why the OS should change - after all the OSGB grid is in km.

 

 

It was actually but even so I had made an assumption that metric ordnance survey maps were a fairly recent idea. Looking at the Ordnance Survey Timeline I was amazed to discover that in fact they first appeared in 1969. A year before I was born :huh: , and five years before we joined the EEC so in fact it has nothing whatsover to do with the EU. Well you live and learn. The reason why I thought it was more recent was that my hero Alfred Wainwright used to complain bitterly about ordnance survey maps using metres so I assumed it had happened recently! A.W did have a point about heights of mountains. Thats why I was surprised that ScotPA used metres to measure the height of them. In the UK we classify our mountains as Munros,Corbetts, Marylins etc. This classification has been effectively knackered by the use of metric heights.

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In the UK we classify our mountains as Munros,Corbetts, Marylins etc. This classification has been effectively knackered by the use of metric heights.

 

Why?

A Munro's still a Munro whether it measures 3000 feet, 36000 inches, 914400 millimetres, 1000 yards, or 45.45454545 chains. Unless there are some out there that haven't been discovered yet, and won't be because people can't work out that they qualify from a metric map.??

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It was actually but even so I had made an assumption that metric ordnance survey maps were a fairly recent idea. Looking at the Ordnance Survey Timeline I was amazed to discover that in fact they first appeared in 1969. A year before I was born :huh: , and five years before we joined the EEC so in fact it has nothing whatsover to do with the EU.

 

Go back even further! I've just done a brief web search and find that the km based OS grid dates back to the Davidson Comittee report of 1938, in which "the international metre was put forward as the unit on which the grid should be based."

 

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/...ts/geo0667.html

 

I do get a bit exasperated (and amused) when people (eg my father) constantly blame "the EU" for everything.

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Now that the EU has finally abandoned plans to enforce the metric system on the UK. Would there be any chance of ordnance survey going back to using miles and in particular using feet for height? How many of you when looking at ordnance survey map information don't perform mental calculations to get the data in a form we can actually process? I am not completely against the metric system, I work in engineering and always use it in that context. However as far as distances and heights are concerned nearly everyone uses imperial don't they?

So abandon a logical system which is an ISO standard, for some old fashioned system based on how log your thumb is or some other body part! I say NO Metric is far superior to the flag waving imperial system, after all calculations are simple and all measurements maintain the same structure be it volume, length, weight etc.

 

Lets not make Geocaching a front for UKIP or some other mad brained political cause!

 

Also FYI, OS has never rejected miles, look at the bottom of your map, it has a mile scale on it!

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Now that the EU has finally abandoned plans to enforce the metric system on the UK. Would there be any chance of ordnance survey going back to using miles and in particular using feet for height? How many of you when looking at ordnance survey map information don't perform mental calculations to get the data in a form we can actually process? I am not completely against the metric system, I work in engineering and always use it in that context. However as far as distances and heights are concerned nearly everyone uses imperial don't they?

So abandon a logical system which is an ISO standard, for some old fashioned system based on how log your thumb is or some other body part! I say NO Metric is far superior to the flag waving imperial system, after all calculations are simple and all measurements maintain the same structure be it volume, length, weight etc.

 

Lets not make Geocaching a front for UKIP or some other mad brained political cause!

 

Also FYI, OS has never rejected miles, look at the bottom of your map, it has a mile scale on it!

 

Who said anything about UKIP other than yourself? If you read my subsequent posts you will see that I have retracted the bit about the EU. Anyway I don't want to start a flame war on this Moote. Next time we meet at an event I would be happy to have a 0.568261485 litre of beer with you.

 

As to metric being superior to imperial, well as I said in my original post I use metric at work. However for everyday life imperial is for me. As an example when working out how hot it is there is no point in comparing the temperature outside to the temperature of boiling water because its never going to get that hot!

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Who said anything about UKIP other than yourself? If you read my subsequent posts you will see that I have retracted the bit about the EU. Anyway I don't want to start a flame war on this Moote. Next time we meet at an event I would be happy to have a 0.568261485 litre of beer with you.

 

As to metric being superior to imperial, well as I said in my original post I use metric at work. However for everyday life imperial is for me. As an example when working out how hot it is there is no point in comparing the temperature outside to the temperature of boiling water because its never going to get that hot!

The UKIP comment, was to state that it is these fools who want a flag waving count in 12's society, we are Europeans, we are on that continental shelf! If you like the silly measurement system which has 5280 feet in a mile, then fine, but what is it to do with Geocaching, nothing!

 

As for drinking Pints or Litres, well I have always prefer a larger measure, also as for temperature, the Fahrenheit system is more bizarre.

 

Fahrenheit, Of or relating to a temperature scale that registers the freezing point of water as 32° and the boiling point as 212° at one atmosphere of pressure.

 

What is logical about that, nothing except 100 F = body temperature, but wait, Body temperature is far from a constant, so this system uses a non-constant for a constant (laughable), at least the metric equivalent has more defined and structured constants.

 

Here is a fact, all GPS calculations are done in metric on your GPS, they are then converted using the GPS to the system which you prefer, this will always introduce error into position as no conversion is ever accurate.

 

P.S. not a flame war, just true facts about the imperial systems of measurement

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Having involvement in the building trade I have learnt to be totally impetric :D

 

Like the term, which is new to me although I too work in the construction industry.

 

I'm 41, taught metric at school but given a grounding in imperial...when serving my apprenticeship, college was 100% metric and the old guys at work all used imperial. :rolleyes:

 

I regularly use a combination...i.e. 1M x 8'. :D

 

Seems to be round numbers that do it for me..

 

If a panel is 300mm I won't see it as 11 3/4" ....it's 300mm

 

Likewise if its 12" I won't see 305mm... its a foot.

 

I can mix and match to suit myself ,or work in either depending who I'm working with.

 

Handy when dealing with our friends across the pond. :anitongue:

 

My GPSr is set up in Imperial units because I changed it,unlike "Grandad" who's stuck in metric and doing the conversions in his head because he can't suss out how to alter the settings. :D

 

I just knew what was coming when I saw the thread title :D .

Contrary to certain beliefs, I like caching in metric as when I am struggling across open moorland looking for some of PUPs caches the distance seems to go past a lot quicker when ticking off kilometers than miles. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :angry::D:D

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Thinking about going out and about, I use metres for heights of mountains.

 

Really, so do you keep a tally of how many of the Welsh 914.4m have you climbed?

 

Well observed :angry: But to be fair I know I never say "I've done the 3000 ft peaks." I always refer them as the "big ones". :rolleyes: But I shall say here, that size isn't everything (as with many things in life :D ) and there are some other smaller mountains out there at 800 metres and 900 metres that still offer great views and fantastic walks.

 

:anitongue: Hmmm... In fact, I've just thought that maybe being measured in metric may have given some of those smaller mountains a reprise. People always missed out on them when they were 'just' 2997ft etc.

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Metric, SI units get a little cumbersome in everyday use. I hardly know anything about imperial units, they still are in the maths syllabus a little.

SI units are great, I use them all the time - but how daft is it that the base unit of mass is kg or kilogram, and kilogram is a multiple unit?

 

I agree with A. Wainwright: I still do spot heights and contours in feet, and 1969 was pretty recent :D; but I'm happy working metric on the OS maps. Being impetric also means I can talk to either Americans or Europeans easily.

 

Pass the popcorn... :anitongue:

Edit: length -> mass :rolleyes:

Edited by Dizzley
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For a country that has got ir right and isn't ashamed to use proper scientific terminology, look no further than Australia (OK, not many places are further than Australia).

 

1) They (along with NZ and Canaa) just decided: we're going metric. And did it.

2) When you go on a diet in Australia, you count kilojoules. Calories are "sort of metric" (a calorie heats 1g of water by 1°C) but they aren't SI. (People who want to be all UKIP/metric martyr should, of course, be measuring their food's energy value in BTUs.) If you're still skeptical, remember that there are 4.19kCal in a joule, so you get to eat over 8000 a day!

3) On a box of eggs in Australia: "Eggs size <whatever>. Minimum mass of each egg 59g". Mass! Yes!

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Just get the memory map program and have it set to whatever units you want. :anitongue:

 

Like lots i think in metres for small distances but then miles. What can I say? Blame the Poor state education in Hampshire in the early 80's.

 

I firmly believe in choice, you want to buy a pint or a litre or a lb of apples etc then go ahead. In this modern age there's no reason that scales can't measure exactly what the customer wants.

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...(a calorie heats 1g of water by 1°C)...
I always thought it's a joule which heats 1g of water by 1°C [edit: Just checked and I'm wrong. I've got a physics A-level, but it was a while ago] and a watt is one joule per second... Anyway, I hear there's good news from the EU for Imperialists; the pint has had a reprieve and drinks can still be served by it. Speaking of which, why's no one mentioned gills yet?

 

Personally, at 35 I grew up with metres and kilos, but just prefer feet and miles for caching. At 3mph, a .1 mile (528ft) walk takes 2 minutes. At the same speed how long would it take to walk 100m? As time is still 'imperial', sometimes sticking with imperial measurements sometimes makes perfect sense. In my opinion. :anitongue:

Edited by Simply Paul
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At school I did miles, yards, feet and inches. Then while still at school, in the 6th form, we changed to cgs. At uni, it was mks, which confused me, and then it was SI, which left me even more muddled. And while that was happening, the currency changed from LSD to pounds and pence.

 

So.

 

Now I have my satnav set to metric, also my GPS, and when I go out with other cachers, I make sure that I talk metric; other folk tend to use the old units (including ladysolly).

 

BUT. British roadsigns are all in imperial. There was one we saw recently in metric, but some band of imperioterrorists had glued an imperial conversion on top of the kilometers, and left a band round the post explaining they'd done that.

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The UKIP comment, was to state that it is these fools who want a flag waving count in 12's society, we are Europeans, we are on that continental shelf! If you like the silly measurement system which has 5280 feet in a mile, then fine, but what is it to do with Geocaching, nothing!

 

 

Yes thats what I do want actually. If that makes me a flag waving fool then so be it, (and for what its worth I am quite proud to fly the flag of my country as are most of the worlds' population). In actual fact though I am quite a liberal person and I don't support the UKIP party at all. Anyway 12 is a great number, it has more factors than 10 and if we didn't have 10 fingers on our hands it would be the natural choice of base for counting. Were the ancient Babylonians "flag waving fools" when they devised the sexagesimal system for time and angle measurement that we still use today? As for what its got do with Geocaching my original comment was about maps. Personally I find maps quite handy for geocaching.

 

Fahrenheit, Of or relating to a temperature scale that registers the freezing point of water as 32° and the boiling point as 212° at one atmosphere of pressure.

 

What is logical about that, nothing except 100 F = body temperature, but wait, Body temperature is far from a constant, so this system uses a non-constant for a constant (laughable), at least the metric equivalent has more defined and structured constants.

 

Well body temperature is quite useful for people who have bodies! The other day I took my lad to the doctors with a fever and the doctor took his temperature. He was in an unfamiliar surgery and he actually had to get his calculator out and convert the celsius reading to fahrenheit so he could make an accurate judgement on my lads health!

 

Here is a fact, all GPS calculations are done in metric on your GPS, they are then converted using the GPS to the system which you prefer, this will always introduce error into position as no conversion is ever accurate.

 

Ah so this is why I have so many DNF's! You know internally my PC uses binary numbers so maybe we should convert all our roadsigns to use the binary system.

 

We could go round in circles on this one. I don't have the politcal agenda you think I have at all. The fact is though that in eveyday conversation people usually express numerical data as multiples of a known quantity. They will say "3 bus lengths" or "2 football pitches". I beleive that the legal system prefers numerical evidence to be presented in this way. This is what the imperial system is all about, relating numerical data to everyday experience which is why comparing the outside temperature to the body temperature (as opposed to boiling water) is a very sensible thing to do.

 

Now when it comes to scientific calculation I admit the metric system is superior which is why I use it at work. However the lives of everyday folk does not always involve knowledge of science. You say metric is better because it is simpler, well most people have for more intelligence than you give them credit for and they can convert feet to inches with relative ease.

 

The bottom line is that people should be able to use whatever system suits them best. That is why I welcome todays ruling by the EU which effectively gives us the freedom to use whatever measurements that work for us. Its a shame it came too late for the now deceased sunderland greengrocer who was prosecuted for measuring his goods using the imperial system that was preferred by his customers.

Edited by Foinavon
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For a country that has got ir right and isn't ashamed to use proper scientific terminology, look no further than Australia (OK, not many places are further than Australia).

 

1) They (along with NZ and Canaa) just decided: we're going metric. And did it.

2) When you go on a diet in Australia, you count kilojoules. Calories are "sort of metric" (a calorie heats 1g of water by 1°C) but they aren't SI. (People who want to be all UKIP/metric martyr should, of course, be measuring their food's energy value in BTUs.) If you're still skeptical, remember that there are 4.19kCal in a joule, so you get to eat over 8000 a day!

3) On a box of eggs in Australia: "Eggs size <whatever>. Minimum mass of each egg 59g". Mass! Yes!

 

Canada did it in the early 70's, the US was toying with idea at the same time. I was in grade 2 when they tried to convert all of us. It stuck in Canada but not here, being a former resident of Canada, I really do miss Km's, if it's 100 km's away, it takes roughly an hour to get there (if your obeying the speed limits). I thought it was much easier than trying to figure out how many hours it takes to go 124 miles. Of course nobody obeys the speedlimits around here! LOL! I also liked being weighed in Kg's, the numbers were so much lower :anitongue::rolleyes: . For some reason feet seem easier in the smaller measurements though.

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:P Cue Monty Python's "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch. :)

 

The best unit of distance is of course the Smoot which led to the Proclaimers' hit song: "I would walk 472,836 Smoots..." It's a great read that page. I never go out caching without my collapsible Smoot. And I will be using the unit in my first puzzle cache (you have been warned).

 

I think the debate is getting a bit Littleendian v Bigendian.

Edited by Dizzley
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:P Cue Monty Python's "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch. :)

 

The best unit of distance is of course the Smoot which led to the Proclaimers' hit song: "I would walk 472,836 Smoots..." It's a great read that page. I never go out caching without my collapsible Smoot. And I will be using the unit in my first puzzle cache (you have been warned).

 

I think the debate is getting a bit Littleendian v Bigendian.

 

Well I have been accused of being a Little Englander and now I am a Little Endianer :D

 

Btw did you know that contrary to popular opinion the Four Yorkshireman sketch is not actually a Monty Python Sketch. It came from At Last The 1948 Show and whilst its original quartet included future pythons Cleese and Chapman the other two where Tim Brook Taylor and Marty Feldman. This is the Original Version of it.

Edited by Foinavon
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I use metric for everything except driving speeds and distance (although my satnav is set for metric so it tells me how far away a junction is in meters).

 

I loved someone's quote on the news about the UK being a 'modern developed country' but still wanting to use an archaic imperial measurement system. It made me laugh, because I work a lot with american engineers, where they still do a lot of engineering in imperial, and one of the american software packages I use has a measurement unit of 'millifeet', which I always find amusing.

 

the funniest system of measurement I've come across recently was at The Register

 

Of course, there's always Size Of Wales for all your unit conversion needs!

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<snip>Btw did you know that contrary to popular opinion the Four Yorkshireman sketch is not actually a Monty Python Sketch. It came from At Last The 1948 Show and whilst its original quartet included future pythons Cleese and Chapman the other two where Tim Brook Taylor and Marty Feldman. This is the Original Version of it.

That's Tim Brooke-Taylor to you. Aye when you tell young people today we had funny sketches in t'Imperial measurements they don't believe you! :P All this you know about Yorkshiremen and you a Lancastrian too! :)

 

Thanks for a very entertaining YouTube link.

Edited by Dizzley
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Mid 40's too and I only use good old proper measurements. None of this decimal stuff here. Even my extending steel tape has been brought in from the US so only has inches on it. Much easier to read as the printing can be a bit bigger.

Just been into the kitchen to get coffee and had a look at the kitchen scales, date stamped 1899. And they still work, unlike just about any set bought today in 100 years. :P

Richard

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I left school in 1962 (you work it out if you're interested)... Metric was something the 'frogs' did and had no place over here. However.... I'm still working as a development engineer for a multi-national company and quite happy to use either but prefer metric. Occasionally I get drawings from one of our companies in the 'States' and they're invariably dimensioned in imperial (if that's the right description for American inches). Not decimal inches, mind you but fractions! Just how long is 6" 33/64ths anyway? :P

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