A selection of shorter items from this issue
Metricated speed restriction warnings with miles per hour converted to kilometres per hour to the precision of two decimal places (e.g. "6.43 KPH") are being erected at a cost of thousands of pounds along the banks of navigable waterways all over Britain.
The signs, the first of which went up along the river Trent in December, are due to Britain's compliance with a European metrication directive.
The new signs were first mooted two years ago when British Waterways agreed with the Department of Trade and Industry to go metric.
The waterways people asked to be allowed to round conversions up or down. Astonishingly, this dispensation was never implemented, so existing speed restrictions have to be converted to an accuracy of 0.01 kph. Even the waterways officials were cringing with embarrassment.
Lucy Williams of the Broads Authority said: "We've 700 signs that may have to be changed on the Norfolk Broads. That will cost thousands and thousands of pounds." Many of the boats will have to be recalibrated, which will also be very costly. Worse, holidaymakers could be misled into going faster than they should, so damaging the Broads with their wash.
(Based on a report by Lewis Smith and Peter Birkett in the Daily Mail, 17.12.95.)
One of our members, Geoffrey Wright, is the largest U.K. dealer in Meccano, by both retail and mail order world-wide. His business recently celebrated its Silver Jubilee. He reminds us that the metal construction system, known as "Meccano" from 1908, was originally patented by Frank Hornby (the founder also of Hornby trains) in 1901 and is recognized as the only true British toy invention.
Right from the start Hornby laid down as standard imperial dimensions: e.g. 5/32" Whitworth for the screw threads, 8 SWG (0.16") for the axle rod diameter, and 1/2" spacing between the holes. Apart from a short period during the last War, production of Meccano sets and parts was continuous in the U.K. right up to the closure of the Liverpool factory in 1979. Much of this production was exported world-wide; not only throughout the Commonwealth and Americas but also pioneering into Europe, opening his second factory in France in the early 1920s.
In later years, both factories changed hands several times, and since 1979 production has been concentrated in the factory at Calais. French production always has been, and still is, to the original imperial specification, which has never posed any difficulty to the French. So today's Meccano remains fully compatible with all previous models, and now there are literally millions of Meccano sets in use world-wide, produced at any time during the last 94 years, all to imperial standards and all fully compatible.
In the short term, thank Heaven it is made solely in France, where these standards are not illegal...But how long before the import into Britain of Meccano to imperial standards is forbidden? And in the longer term, what future do imperial standards have in France, if the very country of their origin disowns them?
It is bad enough, despite the existence of thousands of model instructions using imperial terminology, that (for instance) the 5 1/2" x 2 1/2" Flanged Plate backbone of the system is now to be known as "Flanged Plate 140 x 60 mm". But what would be disastrous would a change, that may eventually be forced on the manufacturers, from the 5/32" Whitworth thread which has no metric equivalent to the metric M4 thread, its closest approximation. For these two threads are visually similar, but when a bolt of one is screwed into a nut of the other, both parts become irrevocably damaged.
So, unless BWMA succeeds in its mission, Meccano's main feature of fully compatible standards for 100 years looks set to be killed off by metric madness.
From Harry Coles, DipWSCM, DipCMus
Whether an organ is destined for Oswestry, Oslo or Osaka, its No. 1 Diapason on the Great (Principal) will speak at 8ft pitch.
Before Great Britain is forced to cede totally to S.I.'s (Système International d'Unités) metric dystopia, with the insane measurements which would ensue in this respect, representations for exemption should be made by our organ builders before an EU Directive is issued to this effect. One would concede that metrication in some scientific fields does have its advantages, nevertheless the technology that built our cathedrals and sent man to the moon was based on feet and inches. The imperial foot has had a permanency since before the monk Wulstan (d. 963) eulogized on Winchester Cathedral's organ. If one draws a stop labelled "8ft" and starts playing on its appropriate manual, its pitch (the number of vibrations per second for any given note [fast ones producing high pitch, slow ones low], the A above middle C being at 440 Hz or BBC pitch) is the same as when playing a piano. It just happens that by a quirk of natural physics, the note C (the third white note up from the bottom of a standard piano) is produced by an ordinary wood or metal organ pipe (called a flue) from its mouth to its top, being approximately 16ft in length.
Twelve pipes on to the next C, and they have tapered down to but 8ft; another twelve and that pipe is 4ft, and so on. Of course, below its mouth is a pipe's foot by which each is held in that particular stop's windchest. A large organ like Liverpool Anglican Cathedral's would contain some 10,000 pipes, all fashioned to the finest of specific dimensions. Some pipes for very high notes are but a few inches long.
From Jonathan C Rogers
The good news is that all is not lost and with the active participation of Members new ground can be captured. A practical illustration of this is that a couple of years ago I met with the designer of one of the major charities' mail order catalogues. I mentioned to him that from a marketing perspective it seemed odd that the dimensions of all the items in the catalogue were quoted in centimetres. He was surprised that I recommended using inches, but to his credit he tested the idea by asking various colleagues to estimate the dimensions of everyday objects. Without exception they all offered their estimates in inches! Faced with such overwhelming evidence he made the only sensible decision and ever since the catalogue has appeared with inches throughout.
Other little victories include the recent lifting of the ban on BBC weather presenters using the "F-word" (Fahrenheit) and with the launch of Channel 4's breakfast programme the appearance of the first TV weather map in years to show temperatures in Fahrenheit.
These are small examples but they show that things can change for the better. Let's start telling the broadcasters what we want to see and hear; they need the ratings. Let's start telling packaged goods manufacturers how they could improve their labelling: they need to grow their market share. Let's tell the retailers the units we want to buy our goods in: they need customer loyalty. And let's tell the road planners that in this country the letter "m" stands for "miles": they seem to be a little confused on that point!
From the Managing Director of a manufacturing company in Sheffield, to one of our members:
Firstly let me reassure you that we have no intention of removing imperial size tools from our range. Apart from the fact that there is a continuing demand from this country for imperial sized tools we have a considerable export business in markets like North America and the Far East which are very far from being metric .... and probably never will be. ...
Secondly, I entirely agree with your feelings about the government making metrication compulsory; it seems to me to be politically inappropriate and economically undesirable; surely this is meant to be the government which allows market forces to decide such matters?
Roger Parson
How important is a nation's culture, its language, literature, art or music? On October 1st, 1995 an attempt was made to eradicate something quite as significant: our traditional weights and measures pounds, ounces, gallons, pints, yards, feet and inches. How did this happen, and why are so many struck with a strange melancholy that seems difficult to put into words?
An obvious answer is that we all object to having new notions foisted upon us. The more subtle reason is that all these units existed for special purposes they were really useful! Based on human dimensions, they have evolved to suit human comprehension and human needs. They lent themselves well to such activities as cooking, carpentry, gardening or building. Most had the special advantage of easy division into halves, quarters and, best of all, thirds. They were indeed "user-friendly," and many were easy to estimate at a glance or a touch. There was no real need to make such measures obsolete, with all the attendant costs of re-equipping factories and re-packaging products. Nothing prevented us from using metric measurements where that was our choice; this has been possible for many years. The continued use of our traditional units by ordinary people need have had no impact on the use of S.I. units in science, or indeed in any occupation which deals in rows of figures with lots of zeros.
Human need and convenience is another matter. By now it will be clear to most that these changes have been sought for administrative expediency; the need and convenience of the Technocrat, Bureaucrat and Eurocrat. The lost "user-friendliness" of our traditional units will be replaced by enhanced power of those who control money, material, laws and people to their narrow advantage.
What we are feeling, often unconsciously, is the loss of a tradition that actually mattered, and the advent of a tyranny that we failed to see coming, or have ignored for too long.
The following report is taken from Just Measure, no. 5, Autumn 1979 (published by the then active Anti-Metrication Board):
A learned professor stunned colleagues [at] the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2 January 1979, by launching an all-out attack on the metric system, described by Adrian Berry in the Daily Telegraph as the most devastating that has yet been uttered. He called it totally illogical, unsuited to the age of computers and modern needs and "incomprehensible equally to housewives, businessmen and physical scientists."
Prof. Bartlett said that novices were seduced into accepting the metric system by the belief that they would grasp it if they could master seven basic units: the metre, the kilogramme, the second, the ampere, the kelvin, the candela and the mole.
But lurking unpleasantly around the corner were more units, derived from the first group, such as the volt, the joule and the pascal. Then there was a table of 14 prefixes, such as the milli, the centi, the kilo and the atto.
In short, he said: "One is awash in a sea of prefixes and the names of dead physicists."
The Imperial system was far preferable, both because it came naturally to the human mind, and because it was similar to the binary arithmetic used by computers.
"There is a natural progression of sizes. Our customary progression of cup, pint, quart, half-gallon and gallon reflects the commercial preference for packages spaced by a factor of two," said Prof. Bartlett. He quoted United States President John Quincy Adams as saying: "A glance of the eye is sufficient to divide material substances into successive halves, fourths, eighths and 16ths. But division of the fifth and 10th part are among the most difficult that can be performed without the aid of calculations."
A letter in the Sunday Telegraph (17.9.95) from Mr J.C. Stott ran as follows: The best verdict on metrication is surely this:
"The scientists had another idea which was totally at odds with the benefits to be derived from the standardisation of weights and measures: they adapted to them the decimal system, on the basis of the metre as a unit; they suppressed all complicated numbers. Nothing is more contrary to the organisation of the mind, of the memory, and of the imagination. ... The new system of weights and measures will be a stumbling block and the source of difficulties for several generations ... it's just tormenting the people with trivia!"
Thus that arch-European Napoleon writing on St Helena. Perhaps Waterloo was a mistake after all.
From "The Weights and Measures of England" published in 1986 by HMSO for the Science Museum:
"The Metric Study Group of the USA judged in their Report of 1971 that it would be inevitable that they should join the rest in adopting and using the metric system, and the Secretary for Commerce agreed with this conclusion when presenting this Report to Congress. He recommended a target date some ten years ahead, but nothing happened.
"Not a few attributed the drive to metricate everything to Britain's entry into the Common Market on 1 January 1973. Britain had, however, applied for membership in 1961 but strong opposition from within the EEC itself delayed matters so that negotiations were only concluded in 1971. Hence Britain's intent to join the EEC antedates the push to metricate by several years." [This contradicts the present government's version of history, which pretends that the resolve to metricate preceded any involvement with the EEC].
"In 1978, bowing to the EEC directive already mentioned, a number of Imperial units such as the chain, furlong, bushel, cental, etc., were no longer authorized for use by Statutory Instrument No. 484 of 1978." [This was the first batch of abolitions; again contradicting the present government's pretence that the process was home-grown rather than EEC-implanted].
"The next month, the Government announced it had no intention to issue further cut-off Orders. Throughout it had been the attitude of Government that metrication was to evolve on a voluntary basis. The Government made the decision to abolish the Metrication Board on 30 April 1980. The Board ... submitted its Final Report. Factually and fairly, the Board recorded the problems it had encountered ... the problems with the retail trade ... and surveys which showed that a majority of people were still not in favour of the transition to the metric system.
"In the first prosecution of its kind (October 1980) a shopkeeper was fined for selling sugar and sea-salt in Imperial measure, a procedure made illegal in 1978, but the fine was only 1 pound and three hundred people petitioned in support of the shopkeeper ..."
Here is a partial list of non-metric measures still used in France, sent to us by Alan Harrison, to whom many thanks.
John Holloway writes that the industry standard in European countries, including the UK, for LPG installations uses Imperial pipework, threads and fittings. He pointed out to Yachting Monthly that their advice to use "10mm (3/8in) copper tube" and "6mm (1/4in) armoured flexible hose" is potentially dangerous. Holloway wrote: "Any attempt to mix metric and Imperial gas fittings in a boat could have catastrophic consequences as a result of the leaks which will surely occur when ill-fitting joints are made between the two systems. ... LPG installation specifications must not be altered thoughtlessly ..., and specifications must not imply that Imperial sizes are directly interchangeable they are not."
One of our members obtained the following answer in January from the Managing Director of a tool-manufacturing company:
"There may be a difference between those countries which still officially use imperial units and those which merely accept/tolerate imperial units. I am not well informed about this distinction but can only give you a list of those countries to which we send products which are manufactured to and described by us as being in imperial measurements. ... The list is: U.S.A. & Canada, Caribbean, Uruguay and Paraguay, Brazil; South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Sudan, Egypt; Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Hong Kong; Australia, New Zealand, Fiji."
He adds that Finland, Norway and Sweden also order some specific products in imperial units.
We are trying to compile a complete list of the many products which are widely described using non-metric units. The following examples are believed to apply throughout the European Union (and often beyond). Further information is invited.
Critics may try to dismiss these uses of imperial measures as "merely descriptive". In that case, so be it, and let all goods be so described!
In February 1996 John Constable bought in a normal DIY shop in Germany, and kindly sent to us, four small packs of various plumbing parts, which he has mounted neatly on a display board. They are a chrome-plated cover and three different types of washer. Though labelled in German, all show sizes mainly or exclusively in inches. The descriptions on the packs are as follows:
Although not fresh news, the following extract from an American newspaper dated 27.7.94, kindly sent to us with other material by William J. Holdorf, is interesting (also its unfamiliar form of English!).
"Mathematicians may argue the costs of the nation putting off going metric. But in Illinois, the decision to put off the decimal system will mean a savings.
A savings of $12 million to be exact, ... That's what it would have cost the state to replace all miles signs on interstates and state highways with their metric counterparts, something the federal government was requiring to be done by Sept. 30, 1996.
Illinois and other states had faced the loss of federal highway funds if they didn't meet the deadline.
But late last month, the Federal Highway Administration announced it was indefinitely postponing the sign switch because more than 2,200 people wrote the highway administration opposing the plan and several members of Congress introduced bills to abolish it.
Most opponents ... cited the cost, estimated at $200 million nationally ...
A 1988 law initially required highway sign changes by the end of 1992, ... The highway administration decided to ask for public comment, and 86 percent of those who wrote opposed metric signs, even if they included both kilometers and miles and were phased in during normal maintenance."
The metric lobby will surely try again, and seek change without
public consultation, as has occurred repeatedly in different
sectors in Britain.
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