When it was last suggested to redo all the road signs in metric as well as imperial measurements, the then Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, was on Question Time that very night.
He ruled it out forcefully, on the grounds that "if we had that kind of money lying around..." Well, this Government clearly does have that kind of money lying around. Who knew?
Only in Britain could a completely different system of weights and measures be used in real life from the one taught in schools, or could people habitually describe heat by means of one system but cold by means of the other. Do most of them even know that that is what they are doing?
It is all utterly glorious, like giving central government a near-monopoly on healthcare, or like the Welfare State in general, or like giving people ballot papers without requiring them to identify themselves, or like having them fill in those ballot papers in pencil (although with the pencils tied up in order to prevent their theft), or like having the local council count the votes even when the election is to the local council, or like allowing only the most specialised Police Officers to carry firearms while the rest go about their duties without any such equipment.
Nevertheless, I would teach both the imperial and the metric systems in schools. I am at a loss as to why that does not already happen without controversy.
I would also teach the fact that it was the Conservatives, with Margaret Thatcher as Education Secretary, who began metrication and who decimalised the currency. As well as the fact that the metric system was invented by an Englishman, John Wilkins.
He is supposed to be the subject of the last chapter of my book otherwise about the Frenchmen whom French children are taught invented or discovered pretty much everything. I am thinking of calling it French Exceptions.
Another book on the To Do list. It lengthens by the day.
Metrication was always a top-down thing. When the currency was decimalised, most people suspected, rightly, that it was an opportunity to put up prices by stealth. Nobody would think of buying beer at the pub except in pints. I still ask my butcher for a pound of beef mince. I think he would be baffled by a request for half a kilo!
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