So some halfwit politician (no names mentioned) wants to mark the jubilee and let shops have a choice to either revert to the imperial measurement or stay metric, so what happens when there is no standard and the rip off merchants get on board.
I will assume that this politician is in the back pocket of the scale manufacturers and or the packaging/printing industries!!!!!!!!
Example
I see in one shop that a kilo of apples is priced at £3.16 per kilo, the pack contains 1.19 kilo’s and is priced at £3.76, So expensive or cheap I don’t care I have a base line to work from.
The next shop down the road is selling the same apples at £1.51 per lb and the pack contains
2lb 8 oz. at £3.77
So where should I buy my apples?
I’ not giving the answer, work it out for yourselves.
Now at the ripe old age of 3 score and ten, or is it 4 guineas or 2 rods, 1 perch, 2 poles and a chain, or 70 for our younger viewers, I was brought up with the imperial system but converted to metric at a reasonably young age so understand both, I say understand but I still have difficulty converting it sometimes.
The basic conversions are not too difficult, 100 miles is about 160 Km, 1 gallon is about 4 ½ litres, 1 kg is about 2.2 lb or 2lb3oz, temperature gets a bit more difficult in my head but I do know the formula for F to C is subtract 32 then divide by 9 and multiply by 5. But I am totally confused by American recipes that call for 2 ½ cups of something, freedom units my a***
In metric, one millilitre of water occupies one cubic centimetre, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade -- which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. Whereas in the imperial system, the answer to 'How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?' is 'Go **** yourself'.
So why don’t we revert to the old £sd as well, that was a blindingly easy system wasn’t it, I’m sure the kids today won’t be able to contain themselves when they come to learn that.
You all know this but for the younger viewers a £ contained 240 pennies, the £ sign is actually a letter L with the 2 lines through it denoting that it is an abbreviation, an abbreviation for Libra pondo or translated from Roman, Pound weight. This was the weight of 1 pound of silver, this was sub divided into 240 denarius , shortened to d, which is where the d comes from in £sd, 240 of these silver coins weighed 1lb. So £1 sterling was 1lb of sterling silver
So with the pound note or (quid) we had 2 x 10 shilling notes or 10 bob note,
4 crowns (5 shillings or 5 bob each). Still legal tender but really just commemorative these days
8 half crowns, 2 ½ shillings or 2s 6d or 2/6.
10 florins (2 shillings or 2/ or 2s or two bob bit).
20 shillings or a bob, or 1s each containing 12 penny’s,
40 six pence’s pronounced sixpunce or tanners,
80 threepenny bits or thru’penny bits or thrupence,
240 penny’s denoted with a d,
480 half penny or ha’penny
960 fourth things (a fourth of a penny) or farthings.
And of course when buying certain items/things it was priced in guineas. A tradesman was paid in £s a gentleman was paid in guineas.
This system did have its uses, you could say look at the thrupenny bits on that and after a curry the next morning you could have the 2 bob bits. But you can’t say those things these days.
And now the useless fact of the day, in queen Victoria’s reign a double florin was minted and issued, worth 48 old penny’s, it is still legal tender today and has never been withdrawn but with a value of 20p never spend it as it is made of pure silver and is worth much more. It is very similar in size to the crown and was commonly known as “barmaid’s grief” because of the size confusion.
Decimal changeover day was on 10 Feb 1971 and on Mon 15th Feb we went decimal, but due to certain old coins still being legal tender pre decimal currency was not finally withdrawn until 21 years later, but because of the double florin there is still one coin left from over 140 years ago.
So the quiz night question when did we go decimal answer is 15 Feb 1971, but the answer to the question when did pre-decimal currency no longer become legal tender is NOT YET
