Cracking point, well made.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rjk
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Cracking point, well made.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rjk
Given this subject a good airing. Think it's time to move on
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyril evans awaydays
Exactly, give people an inch and they’ll take a mile
Wind up merchant. I'm not taking the bait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
If you give them 2.54 cm they'll take 1.61km surely?Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUETIT
Not on the wind up at all, but if that's what you need to say as an "out" that's fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Undercoverinwurzelland
weights and measurements are a part of a nations culture and identity. Albeit a small part. It should go without saying.
I greatly enjoy explaining to my befuddled American children how there used to be 240 pennies to a pound instead of 100, that 12 pennies equalled a shilling and 20 shillings equalled a pound, and how effortlessly we made those calculations. Those old movies with shops signs stating such mysteries as 2/6 and 1/10 are softly nostalgic. Yes, the decimal system — demanded long ago, you might know, by Plantagenet Palliser — is more efficient and globally uniform, but the flip side of uniformity is conformity.
When I visit a foreign country I hope to encounter foreignness.
On the other hand, convenience is valuable. So count me on the fence.
Surely, though, any movement back to the imperial system would be slow, advancing by the inch rather than the mile.
Do we really want our kids and grandkids to be confused and potentially ripped off when they travel abroad?
I think of height in feet and inches, and weight in stones (get a bit confused with pounds though - a newborn's weight in kilogrammes makes more sense to me). But it wouldn't bother me if future generations dropped them. I'm quite sure I could adapt.
Whilst we're at it, why not bring back black and white TV, C30 cassettes and the Home Service on the wireless? And 45rpm records? Esq. should be added to the name of the gentleman to whom a letter is addressed and women denied the vote unless they are over 30 and homeowners. All children should be taught Latin until 16 and rotten boroughs reintroduced to ensure the likes of Jacob Rees-Moggs offspring have at least one parliamentary seat each. Feet n inches, pounds and ozs. Thin end of the wedge.
Haha What an argumentQuote:
Originally Posted by lardy
8 Track and Betamax!
Vital part of our culture.
God Save The Queen!
Whilst we're at it can we ditch July and August and have 10 months in a year?
On a list of priorities this wouldn’t make anyones list, regardless of political views or Brexit stance.
A waste of everyone’s time and a deflection of real issues.
No, I'm more in favour of having an extra month and making it 13 months in the year, then they each have 4 weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Bloop
The additional month should slot in between August and September
Haha What an argumentQuote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
Shill for the Gregorians are you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rjk
It's Soft Jingoism.
tell that to Moses b cotsworthQuote:
Originally Posted by lardy
Who cares?
Rule Britannia I say get out on Thursday and raise the roof to all things British ,and thanks to our forefathers for delivering us a good safe ,fair , prosperous country for our children and their children .
Nothing wrong with being proud
Tradition, identity and heritage are important. If you don't agree with that you're probably a globalist shill.Quote:
Originally Posted by lardy
We could go for something like the French Revolutionary Calendar. That still had 12 months, but a week was 10 days ..... assume it meant you had to work for 9 before you could have a say off?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Bloop
you don't have to be stuck in the past to be proud. you.can be proud of Britain adopting the metric system and being a forward thinking countryQuote:
Originally Posted by life on mars
I've never heard anyone brag that they have 20cm winky either!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
The US, Myanmar and Liberia are the only 3 non-metric countries. This country's being dragged backwards by the "back in my day!" crowd.
The fact that this "red meat for the masses" idea by Boris to show Brexit had at least one positive is as pathetic as it is laughable. Even the top rated comment on the Daily Mail article is openly laughing at how stupid and pointless it is.
You're right. Our national identity is intrinsically linked with measuring by the barleycorn and by gods teeth we must defend it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
they do in the rest of europe...but not in little pinky cardiff :hehe:Quote:
Originally Posted by North Cardiff Blue
That stupid? Wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by celticknight
I didn't say "intrinsically" lardy pants. I clearly said it was a part "allbeit small"Quote:
Originally Posted by lardy
But you do think we should bring back the barleycorn?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
I refuse to call our new superstar Ollie two and a half p!!
Cassettes.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1959
Bring back Spangles, Marathon, Treats, Bar Six, Opal Fruits...
Feck off! My birthday is in there!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Bloop
Not sure what barley corn is but i'm all up for reviving traditions "if" they enrich society. i'm all up for a revolt against certain aspects of the modern world and globalism. The idea in this thread that tradition is bad and modern is automatically good and "progressive" is nonesense. Someone suggesting life is better today because we don't have betamax video is also nonesense. Some people are clearly impressed by the next new glittery thing. Which is nothing more than mindless consumerismQuote:
Originally Posted by lardy
I'm pretty sure the metric system isn't some new fad that isn't going to catch onQuote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
The metric system is older than imperial, so you might want to change your allegiances.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
If there'd been a ccmb in the 1820s, perhaps people there would have been upset about moving from the Winchester System to the new fangled one.
If you haven't seen Dave Gorman's presentation on this, you should. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vunESk53r5UQuote:
Originally Posted by Rjk
He proposes 13 equal months of 28 days with an intermission to make up the missing day (or two intermissions for a leap year), basically extended new year's piss ups.
Tradition, identity and heritage can also hold back progress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lither_1927
One Welsh tradition is singing. Allegedly. Of course it isn't. The Land of Song was a moniker attached to Wales by the English. Historically, Wales has never been more of a singing country than the rest of the UK.
As a result of this "heritage", we have hundreds of male voice choirs around the country, most of them struggling with ageing memberships and still singing the old shit they have for decades upon decades. New choirs, such as Only Men Aloud, are the future of male voice singing in Wales, yet I see so many traditional choirs clinging onto the past because it makes them feel comfortable.
Tradition, identity and heritage hasn't been decided forever. It changes. New things will become a part of our culture while some old things are no longer of relevance. We need to embrace change. We can nod to the past, sure, nothing wrong in respecting that, of course. In 100 years I bet there'll be little mentioned about our mining heritage as, generation by generation, it gets forgotten.
The imperial system has added loads to the language regardless of its idiosyncrasies. The metric/decimal system, even though it’s been about a while, hasn’t caught the public’s imagination at all really, certainly the money. Bob, tanner, threepenny bit, coppers, half a dollar all were used regularly while in over fifty years there aren’t any lasting nicknames for the new money. I still call 50ps ten bob bits:old:
25mm high Private Eye, the 1.6km high club, well I’ll go to the 300mm of our stairs, I had a drink in The Metre in St Mary St (bit of poetic licence with those two:hehe:), Gertrude 5p (one for the Ascot oldies), Sharon 6.3kg...............
The US is the most advanced economy on earth(for now). They haven't been dragged backwards by not going metric.Quote:
Originally Posted by celticknight
The metric system may be older but it's not British in origin lardy, nor has it permeated the culture in the same way.Quote:
Originally Posted by lardy