Through practically all of my career I bought turf by the square yard.
In the early days I also laid a lot of 2' square slabs and laid bricks which were graded in imperial.
I'm one of those who straddled the metric changeover and I still, at times, get muddled with yards, feet and inches and metres and centimetres.
It very much looked like metric would become the defacto in the UK and bring us in line with all of Europe.
Back in 2001 greengrocer Steve Thoburn fought back and refused to sell only in metric units and was hauled into court by Sunderland City Council for selling a pound of bananas.
In 2008 the Government backed down but it was sadly too late for Steve Thoburn who died or a heart attack aged just 39.
David Cameron: schools should teach mainly in imperial measurements
Now it seems there is life still in the imperial measurement system after David Cameron called for it to be re-introduced into the school curriculum.
From the Guardian:
Four decades since metres and litres replaced yards and pints on the curriculum, the prime minister suggested he would prefer to see a return to the old system.
“I think I’d still go for pounds and ounces, yes I do,” Cameron told BBC2’s Newsnight when asked which should be taught predominantly.
The present curriculum, which Tory ministers have said they will skew towards imperial measures, requires only that pupils “understand and use approximate equivalences between metric units and common imperial units such as inches, pounds and pints”.
Returning to imperial measurements
How about you? Would a return to the imperial measurement system impact on you? What if builders' merchants started to sell paving in square yards or fencing in feet and inches?
For the younger professionals....is metric a far simpler system to understand?
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As someone born in 1966 I can't get why we hang on to a more complicated system after well over 40 years. Metric is so simple to learn.
What really bugs me is being told a car will do a certain MPG, when we can't buy gallons, or so many KM/litre, when we don't have kilometres!
Scrap imperial completely, get kilometres on the road signs and speedometers, stop the flippin' weather reports having to give temperatures in two measures, measuring equipment can all be standardised to one system so easier to read, you know it makes sense! ;-)
I find it an utterly ridiculous suggestion, there was a very good reason for changing to metric and it remains so.
And at time of budgetary constraints, imagine the costs, if you will of changing measurements details on everything single thing we buy, sell and produce!!!
As Peter says, it is a mish-mash. Last week I needed to replace 9 x 1ft trellis sections on top of an existing fence in slotted posts. Easy, I nipped away, said to the lads, I'll be a couple of hours, just got to pick 'em up and pop 'em in! First one .....TIGHT! Move on to second section....not even tight, 1/2 inch short! Third one.....same! Out with the tape measure and the panels were all 1800mm! Brilliant, so the two hours became five as I needed to trim 1/4" of each end of each trellis! Maybe after nearly 40 years in the business I should have measured the panels first!!!
I learnt the metric system at school.. However on site its whatever comes into my head first.. as many have said a little bit of a miss mash especially when fencing!
That's the trouble - give an inch and they take a metre....
as a child of the very early 70s I use both. parts of the imperial befuddle me, but its all second nature to interchange between them. even the young guys that work with me do. The problem is the building industry is standardised on the old basis of the imperial and the new metric conversions, don't actually quite fit. they sell you an 1800 long gravel board, when you actually need an 1830mm long one. you still go and ask for a bit of 4 x 2, we still say take an inch of it, not 25mm. everyone still buys sheds I as 6 feet x 4 feet, everyone still refers to 6 foot or 5 foot tall fencing.
its going to take a lot to change it
I was raised on imperial - long live metric! Not only is imperial complicated and out of step with the rest of the world, the names are made to confuse - UK and USA measurements have the same names but state different quantities in fact.
Imperial was supposed to be kept for "just a few years" so old folk wouldn't have too much sweat getting used to something new. I was young then. Well now I'm an "old folk" and imperial should have been buried long ago.
Most of our trade is with Europe, not with the USA and we have proportionately even less with anywhere else. For all the clamourings of the so-called traditionalists, there is no logic whatever in manufacturing or trading using imperial measures. Its only remaining use is in matching existing artefacts and features to new materials when they are to be added to, altered or extended.
As we are staying out of the Euro currency, I fancy we should campaign to bring back Imperial & Pounds, Shillings and Pence.
Just think of all the old slang we used to be able to use. A guinea, a bob, half a crown, two bob bit, threepenny bit, sixpence, coppers, farthing....The only real currency that is always divisible due to it's base..and nothing like threepenny bits :-)
I have to say I still dip in and out of both systems - take an inch off is SO definitive, so precise. Take 25.4mm off somehow just doesn't cut it ;-)
,,,ah those were the days.......
Haha I remember it well Gary - and some of that slang now considered very non-PC!
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