How much is petrol in England right now....

[lixnaw]

I thought we couldn't get the real Guinness over here...

As far as I can tell, you don't get any real beer at all.

That's 'cause we keep the stuff from the micro-breweries to ourselves, and only advertise the crap like Bud and Coors.

[Lambchop]

I know this has probably been discussed before, but why dont yanks use Metric system in a lot of things yet?

Because it's like, umm, a free country . . . yeah . . . that's why . . . <ahem!>

They tried to foist it upon us, but we resisted. Nothing "organized," you understand . . . just more like everyone ignored it. Pointedly ignored it.

There were efforts made to lure us over, but it all kind of fizzled out.

Most of it happened during the sprouts-and-sun-tea "ecological intellectual" phase, so I think "metric" kind of got wrapped up in that. It came across as being very high-brow and Public Broadcasting System (our cultural TV and radio). Vegetarian and macrobiotic. Montessori. Luuuuv beads. That or something belonging in science class.

Just my take on the situation, you understand. Could have been a more sinister plot, but I think mostly nobody could figger it out.

[Lambchop]

[gas stations were taking advantage of the confusion and overcharging
for a liter of gas.

Uh oh, that reminds me . . . need to go fill the tank before Rita-mania hits and the prices go up yet again . . .

[Denny]

maybe we just like fractions?

[djm]

Lambchop has pretty much nailed it from a plebian point of view, but the clincher was when American industry and retailers screamed about the cost of relabelling and repackaging everyhting. The joke of that is that they had no problems adding the metric equivalent to all products they sell to Canada.

djm

[SteveShaw]

Petrol in Cornwall today was c. $7.68 per gallon. It was higher last week but seems to be sticking around that. You could probably say $8 for diesel.

Steve

[RonKiley]

First of all we inherited the "English" system from guess who. During the 70s I worked on a project to build Hydrofoil ships that were joint Nato ships. Consequently we had to use metric system. It was a riot watching the Boeing employees at the Renton plant carrying little metric conversion calculators so they could tourque things in foot pounds. Further no one had a clue as to what magnitude a pressure expressed in newtons per square meter could be. We pulled up to a refueling ship and told them we needed 8000 liters of jet fuel. The bos'n mates look was a real classic.

Ron

[Redwolf]

why dont yanks use Metric system in a lot of things yet?

I'd like to know this myself. I have heard that it was tried in the 70's but
largely abandoned for some reason. I also understand that folks had a hard
time figuring out what they were paying for gas (petrol), and rumors flew
that gas stations were taking advantage of the confusion and overcharging
for a liter of gas.

It was never really given a trial, even in the '70s. I was in school back then, and we all learned metric, starting in the fourth grade, because we were told it was what we were all going to be using in a few years. They changed a few things...for example, selling soda in liters instead of in quarts, and putting up a few token road signs that gave distance in both miles and kilometers, but that's about it. None of the gas stations in our area changed to liters.

I remember it being a huge problem when Japanese cars started coming on strong here, because it was hard to find a mechanic who could work on one...all their tools were sized in inches, and the Japanese cars, of course, had metric measurements. My dad agonized over buying a Honda at one point and decided it would be so hard to find a mechanic (and so expensive to pay for one...because there were so few of them, they charged through the nose!) that the gas savings weren't worth it! Different world back then, that's for sure!

What we need to do is essentially what Europe did when it changed to a single currency...announce a date and, from that point on, all official measurements are required to be in metric. People'd grumble for a while, but they'd get used to it very quickly.

Redwolf

[djm]

No, not really. We did that here, cutting cold turkey, but I still don't understand grams or kilometers. I still have to convert them to get a sense of the real value. Temperatures are finally making some sense.

djm

[fel bautista]

As far as I can tell, you don't get any real beer at all.

Sorry guys- hit the send before I started to type

There is Chimay,Duval and Orval, what else do you need???

[oscartherabbit]

First of all we inherited the "English" system from guess who. During the 70s I worked on a project to build Hydrofoil ships that were joint Nato ships. Consequently we had to use metric system. It was a riot watching the Boeing employees at the Renton plant carrying little metric conversion calculators so they could tourque things in foot pounds. Further no one had a clue as to what magnitude a pressure expressed in newtons per square meter could be. We pulled up to a refueling ship and told them we needed 8000 liters of jet fuel. The bos'n mates look was a real classic.

Ron

So why is the US imperial system different to the UK one? US gallons and pints are slightly smaller than the UK equivalent, and US fluid ounces are slightly larger.

I did some work for Mobil several years ago. Their geologists used metres and the drilling engineers used feet for measuring the depth of the well. That was hilarious. We had to do a special version of our software to show both depth figures so everyone knew how much drill pipe we had in the hole.

Many of us in the UK are so used to both systems that we can switch without even thinking about it. I often mix units, so I'll buy 2 metre lengths of 4x2 timber, or a 4x6 sheet of 5mm ply. It's not that hard.

[jbarter]

We have a really odd mix of metric and imperial measurements in England.

I fill my car (a Nissan) with litres of diesel but it has a readout on the dash telling me how many miles per gallon I'm getting.
I buy my milk in litres and my beer in pints (and don't try to change that Mr Government).
I work all day with building plans that are in metric and have no trouble but can't envisage someone's height unless it's in feet and inches.
I still can't figure out if I'm going to be hot or cold until the weather report tells me the fahrenheit version. (My kids however have this problem the other way round).

We've got loads of such inconsistencies over here but what does it matter. We already speak English so we should be used to them by now.

[oscartherabbit]

There is Chimay,Duval and Orval, what else do you need???

Well if you want to talk about beer imported from Belgium that's not a bad place to start. I like Gulden Draak, La Chouffe, St Bernadus and Rochefort 8, to name but a few, but none of them are really what you'd call "session ales". Kind of one off really - you'd be a bit of a mess if you tried drinking them all night (trust me - I know from personal experience).

Try a few good real ales, like Deuchars IPA, Timmy Taylor's Landlord, Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted.

Now - here's a price comparison worth finding out. How much is a decent pint in the US? A pint of real ale in my local is £2.45.

[oscartherabbit]

No, not really. We did that here, cutting cold turkey, but I still don't understand grams or kilometers. I still have to convert them to get a sense of the real value. Temperatures are finally making some sense.

djm

Someone once asked me if 5 grams was more or less than 8 grams. I told her the best way to find out was to convert it into imperial.

[GaryKelly]

"My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!" - Granpa Simpson.