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During the recent Rugby World Cup, the Director of the BWMA referred to the "10 yard line", the "25 yard line", etc. in conversation with a South African supporter, who interrupted with "No, no, you mean metres - we're all metric now!" Whereupon the Director asked: "What do you call your player in the no. 9 position?" and the Springbok had to answer, "Scrum half, of course!" to which the rejoinder was "No, no, you mean scrum 0.5 - we're all metric now! And what about your nos. 11 and 14?"* * *
During the 2nd January football match between Rangers and Celtic in Glasgow, there was a free kick just outside the penalty area and the BBC radio commentator Roddy Forsyth, declared that the referee was having trouble ensuring that the defending players were "the full ten metres from the ball" before allowing the attacking side to take the free kick.* * *
We all know that the International Olympic Committee has been using metric units for years.* * *
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"Across Britain there are many shopkeepers who put pounds and ounces on the food they sell. But ... Europe has decided they will be banned from doing this ... even if it helps their customers. This is farcical!"
Rt. Hon. Paddy Ashdown M.P.
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"Without enforcement, the completion of metric conversion will never happen".* * *
"I deplore and condemn, unreservedly, the ludicrous legislation that would make the sale of foodstuffs in the United Kingdom in pounds and ounces a criminal offence from the end of this year."
Lord Shore of Stepney
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"[..members of the BWMA] are undoubtedly right in standing up for the foot and scorning the atheistic metre. This cause must be won. The present foot is the basic standard behind traditional measures worldwide. It applies equally to the human frame, to the earth's dimensions and to astronomical distances. If you were to regard our traditional system of measures as God-given you would not be far short of the mark. This is not just a battle for Britain but for human culture generally. Someone should tell the Continentals that in this age of quantum physics, computers and binary notation their metre is old fashioned and cranky, and persuade them to adopt the true, humane, civilized standards appropriate to the new millenium."* * *
The modern myth is that the pathetic human brain cannot manage sexagesimal numbers but in reality, as a recent paper in Nature on early currency exchanges revealed, we have always managed sexagesimal calculations with relative ease. There is nothing rational - only something anal - in replacing easily divided numbers with less easily divided but tidier ones and the metric system was always a political initiative masquerading as an efficiency saving.* * *
A couple of years ago the UK supermarkets opened for business on Sundays in open defiance of the laws of the land because "that is what our customers want." Now those same supermarkets are enthusiastically supporting new laws abolishing traditional weights and measures despite the fact that this is the precise opposite of what their customers want! Inconsistent? Certainly. Hypocritical? Not really, it just shows that they will support any cause which will help them to make more money. The new weights and measures has been a golden opportunity for traders to sneakily increase prices by "rounding down" the weights and quantities of goods.* * *
Congratulations to Cadbury's for introducing a three foot long bar of chocolate and selling it as* * *
The three new MEPs from the UK Independence Party, on their debut in Brussels, had to supply personal details for administrative and security purposes. Asked for his height, the Party Leader, Michael Holmes, replied "Five feet eight inches." Asked to give it in centimetres he replied "I've no idea." His two colleagues followed suit and the clerk had to note the height of each in Imperial and do the conversion later.
This is known as putting one's best foot forward!
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A recent viewers' poll on ITV's Teletext service drew 7229 votes of which 97% were opposed to the compulsory use of metric measurement.* * *
"..our traditional units for measuring length and areas are not, as commonly supposed, a relic of Britain's Imperial past, nor a mediaeval hotch-potch, nor even a derivation from ancient Rome, but in fact are integral to a universal system that is as old as civilization itself - from the very roots of mathematics, music and time."* * *
One degree of arc measured at the equator equals 365,242 feet: signifying the number of days in 1000 years.* * *
The system of natural logarithms, discovered by John Napier, uses the constant e (2.718281828..) as the base number. Curiously enough, this is the length of the Megalithic Yard, measured in feet, which has been found to be the basic unit of measurement used in the building of Stonehenge. Even more curious is the fact that one Megalithic Yard = one foot + one Egyptian cubit!* * *
In 1989 Shell Oil spent tens of millions of dollars converting its US pumps to dispense petrol in litres only to find its customers leaving in droves. Now it is spending tens of million more changing back to gallons!
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"[The decimal system] can be applied only with many qualifications to any system of metrology; that its natural application is only to numbers; and that time, space, gravity and extension inflexibly reject its sway... Decimal arithmetic is a contrivance of man for computing numbers, and not a property of time, space or matter. Nature has no partialities for the number ten, and the attempt to shackle her freedom with it will forever prove abortive."* * *
The abandonment of the teaching of Imperial measurement in British schools allowed Education Authorities to destroy millions of textbooks on subjects including drawing, handicrafts, physics as well as general science and arithmetic together with all the accompanying tools and equipment. The Nazis burnt books publicly; we just dumped them quietly into landfill sites. Now the government's Department of Education pleads poverty saying it cannot afford books for our schools!* * *
"Half a loaf is better than 0.5
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The metric system has been described as a walled off area into which nothing will be admitted, nor anything allowed to escape. It is guarded by a self appointed priesthood which deigns to explain the mysteries to bemused worshippers and forms a syndrome compounded of* * *
In November of 1793 the Comité de Salut Public implied that politics had superseded Christianity by supressing the Christian calendar, with its Sundays and feast days, in favour of the 'decade' a period of ten days. This was the spirit of the Revolution which gave birth to the metric system.* * *
From Year 2000, when Britain is obliged to implement an EC Directive on the compulsory use of metric units, it will be illegal to sell loose food, such as fruit and vegetables in imperial measures. The penalty for this is six months in prison and/or a £5,000 fine - the same as for assaulting a police officer. It is an astonishing fact that Britain is the only country in the world where the use of British Imperial measures is illegal!* * *
"The scientists adopted the decimal system on the basis of the metre as unit. Nothing is more contrary to the organisation of the mind, memory and imagination. The new system will be a stumbling block and source of difficulties for generations to come. It is just tormenting the people with trivia."* * *
"It is impossible to investigate the wonderful composition of the microcosm in the figure of man and examine the wonderful harmony of the Universe without an exact knowledge of the proportions of all these parts and to know the number, weight and measure of which the world is composed."* * *
"Mathematicians, for the most part, lose in simplicity and common sense that which they gain in human logic and numerical rigour. They dream of imprisoning nature into a formula, of putting life into an equation."
Fulcanelli: "Les Demeures Philosophales"
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"And when even the elemental capability to measure was totally lost, then the last night would surely fall.... let us only be concerned about one thing: to keep standing amid a world of ruins."
Julius Evola: "Revolt Against The Modern World"
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John Michell, in the note above, describes the metre as "atheistic" and the foot as "God -given". This can be demonstrated by reference to one of the glories of Christendom, Chartres Cathedral, in which the foot is a basic measure used during construction: as an example of this, the north tower is 365' high and is topped off with a weather vane in the form of the sun indicating the solar year; the south tower is 28' shorter than the north and, as if drawing attention to this figure, the weather vane takes the form of the moon.* * *
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One last item: when your European friends ask you about 212º for boiling, ask them how they deal with 99.975º! Did you know that's the boiling point of water in the Celsius system which replaced Centigrade after the war? Truly it is.* * *