B R I T I S H
W E I G H T S
&
M E A S U R E S
ASSOCIATION
PRESS RELEASE
29 March 1999
PADDY ASHDOWN MP WINS THE COVETED "INCH PERFECT" AWARD
THE BBC WINS THE UNCOVETED "METRICKERY" AWARD
.
THE BWMA AWARDS
The British Weights & Measures Association is campaigning to get the criminal law removed from traditional weights and measures. In ten months time it will be illegal to sell apples by the pound or steak by the ounce. The Association presents two important awards each year.
The "Inch Perfect" award is granted to the person, or organisation, for the most outstanding resistance to compulsory metrication. This year it goes to Paddy Ashdown, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, for announcing at his party conference last September that they will campaign to get the ‘lunacy’ of criminalising traditional weights and measures abolished.
The "Metrickery" Award goes to the person, or organisation, which has done the most to promote metrication against the consumer's interest.
This year it goes to the BBC for craven adherence to metrication against the wishes of the great majority of the population. We give two examples:
BBC TV WATCHDOG programme criticised shrinking pack sizes, such as potato crisps. A leading manufacturer shrank the one-oz pack, (28.35g) to 27g, then 26g, then to 25 g, all for the same price. Not once was the pernicious effect of metrication mentioned. Yet it is metrication that has deprived consumers of their sense of weight and value, and manufacturers exploit this.
PLAYDAYS, the BBC children’s magazine, converted their recipes to metric quantities. A mother complained: "My three year old can count reliably to fourteen and on a good day to twenty. But 325 grams of flour might as well be a zillion! It is totally meaningless to her. She copes perfectly well with the equivalent in ounces". The BBC’s reply was moronic. "Children will see weights and measures in metric as we become more Europeanised. As long as your daughter knows that you are doing an accurate measuring exercise she does not need to know and understand the exact amounts at her age. The important thing is for her to have fun!"
For further information CONTACT: Mr Vivian Linacre, BWMA Director 45 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh EH7 5JX (Tel. & FAX: 0131 556 6080)
Press release distributed by David Delaney, BWMA Hon Public Relations Officer, Mortimers Cross Mill, Leominster, HR6 9PE, (Tel: 01568 708 820, FAX 01568 708 765, e-mail dtdelaney@compuserve.com).
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