Pounds, shillings and pence

Following a comment by Annie on a previous post, I thought I'd say something about the metric system here in the UK. Basically, it's a mess. Back in the old days, when I was a mere babe in arms, we had a weird monetary system whereby there were 12 pence in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound. A pound was therefore 244 pence. How people ever got the hang of this I will never know. In 1971 (I think) we went decimal, which made shopping a lot easier once everyone had gotten used to it.

Since then, the government (or Brussels) has been trying to make up go metric on everything else, with varying degrees of success. Petrol (gasoline) is now sold in litres, although everyone still talks about fuel economy in miles per gallon. Newspaper headlines scream about the four pound gallon, because everyone here can relate to that, even though fuel hasn't been sold by the gallon for years. Road signs on motorways advertise service stations with the phrase: "Services 10 miles. Fuel 89.9 per litre" (fuel is always hideously expensive on the motorways..... you'd think it would be cheaper, since the tankers are driving past there anyway).

Food is sold by the kilo, although everyone still asks for it by the pound. You go to the cheese counter and ask for a pound of cheddar, and the assistant will ask you if half a kilo is ok. Bottled drinks in supermarkets are sold in 75cl or 2l bottles, yet you go to a pub and wouldn't dream of asking for anything other than a pint. I'm not sure what measures are used for spirits, I usually just ask for a double (saves time!)

We measure distances in feet and inches, although in hardware shops timber is advertised in metric. You can see a board of MDF measured at 1220 by 607mm, which sounds odd until you realise that it's 4ft by 2ft (aka fourbetoo).

And the strangest thing about all this, is that everyone accepts it like it's the most normal thing in the world. We're a funny lot, us Brits.