I've just sent off the following letter to Hammond, cc to David Cameron (prime
minister), Nick Clegg (deputy PM) as well as my own MP (also anti-metric). You
might notice a trace of sarcasm here and there...
Philip Hammond: Secretary of State for Transport
Houses of Parliament
Dear Mr Hammond:
I have just learned that you are proposing to ban all metric measurements from
our road transporation system. What a simply brilliant move! We've had far
too much of this
metric nonsense. I must say, your proposal has already excited my friends and
colleagues in Canada, Australia and South Africa, all of whom have emailed me
and asked me to
confirm that this is true. As you may know, all these three countries (and I
believe about 189 other countries) use the metric system on their road signs.
How silly is that?
But then they're all foreigners, and as you and I both know, foreigners are
ignorant. We should have made Canada, Australia and South Africa and all the
countries we once owned
stick to their imperial road signs - let them know that it is us Brits who know
what's best for them. Cheeky upstarts, the lot of them. I will admit that my
Canadian,
Australian and South African friends and colleagues wondered whether this was a
good thing, given Britain's precarious foreign trade situation and all that -
one even suggested
that this could hurt our exports! What rot! These people need to understand
that the world NEEDS British imperial-designed things - far superior to all
that metric designed foreign rubbish.
Now, having decided that our entire road system will, quite rightly, remain in
imperial units, we should do the same with the vehicles on those roads. I
mean, it doesn't make
sense to have metric cars, buses and lorries on imperial roads, does it? So I
believe you should take the next logical step, and allow only imperial designed
and manufactured
vehicles on British roads. THAT would stop all those nasty foreign vehicles
cluttering up our roads - and rejuvenate our car manufacturing industry at the
same time. Now I
admit this will be a bit of a challenge - every car manufactured anywhere
today, including in the USA, is designed in metric. Even our British
manufacturers of the day agreed
to go metric - how unpatriotic is that? So there might be a few problems (all
the bits that go in these cars - things like tyres, light bulbs, minor things
like that - are all
currently made to metric standards). But nothing that, I'm sure, a goold old
bit of British knowhow and ingenuity can't overcome. Show johnny foreigner a
thing or two, I'll
wager.
Of course, with our imperial-only roads and the imperial-only vehicles on them
we will have to educate the rest of the world in imperial units - if they want
to sell their nasty
German, American, Japanese, Korean, French and Italian tin boxes here, that is.
What a golden opportunity for our universities! Hundreds of thousands of
foreign engineers,
designers, professionals of every kind, who all now need to know how many
inches in a mile and how many yards in a foot. We all know British education
is the best in the world
- this will REALLY prove it to all those ignorant foreigners who don't know the
difference between a stone and a furlong. Did you know that there are 5.7
billion metric-only
foreigners in the world, many of whom now might need to learn imperial
measurements? I bet they can't wait to get started!
Finally, as you are firmly convinced - and the entire rest of the world will
agree with you - that we British should revert to the 19th century imperial
measuring system for our
entire transportation infrastructure, we should bring back some of the 19th
century traffic laws as well. The worst thing we did was repeal the red flag
act in 1896 - the one,
you may recall, that required a man with a red flag to walk in front of every
powered motor vehicle. Do you know what the repeal of that law did to the flag
industry in this
country? It decimated (sorry, wrong word) - it all but destroyed it!
Factories up and down the country making red flags had to shut down. Now, if
we brought back that law,
all those foreign countries that never had a red flag act would see how
wonderful it would be (especially in terms of traffic deaths - we all know that
speed kills, don't we? I
see signs everywhere telling me so). All those silly metric countries will now
enact their own red flag laws, following our superior British imperial lead -
and will be beating
down our doors wanting to buy our superior, imperial red flags. What a golden
day for British industry that will be.
Mr Hammond, your proposal to revert to imperial-only represents a truly
brilliant piece of strategic thinking - the kind of thinking that we British
are noted for. It sends a
clear message to the rest of that horrible metric world out there - and will
certainly make the rest of the world sit up and take notice! It makes you
proud to be British!
Well done, sir, and a jolly good show!
(With hopefully enough sarcasm to show that I am not serious.)
John F-L
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: UKMA Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 2:29 AM
Subject: [USMA:47556] Re: UK Transport Minister banishes metric in all
official communications
On 2010/06/08, at 05:13 , ezra.steinb...@comcast.net wrote:
Is this barmy or what? Hammond has clearly gone 'round the bend ...
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/179560/This-U-turn-on-metric-is-miles-better
Ezra
Obviously the Minister is showing his opposition to the English metric
system. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com/who-invented-the-metric-system.html and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
How sad.
I don't suppose that Secretary Phillip Hammond has considered the complete
trashing of the entire English teaching of mathematics he has just put in
train. As we know teaching multiple methods of measurement will have the effect
of requiring all UK children to spend an extra year studying mathematics at
school to achieve the level of mathematics needed to become a public servant in
Secretary Phillip Hammond's Department. As a foretaste of the difficulty the UK
education system might face see the article: 'The Case for U.S. Metric
Conversion Now' (1992, December 9) by Richard P. Phelps where he states that:
'It (USA education system) teaches two systems of measurement in the schools
and, the confusion from learning two systems aside, there is a cost to the time
spent in teaching two systems. A full year of mathematics instruction is lost
to the duplication of effort.
You can view Richard P. Phelps' article after you register on the Education
Weekly database at:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1992/12/09/14phelps.h12.html
Leaving aside Secretary Phillip Hammond's sabotage of all UK schools, he is
also attempting to sabotage all UK industry. His 'leadership' toward the use of
Roman soldiers 'feet' and Roman soldiers 'miles' instead of using the metric
system invented in England will, I have no doubt, re-generate all of the
massively time wasting discussions and disputes about choice of which measuring
methods to use for all jobs in all industries. It will only be very strong
company and industry leadership that will be able to withstand Secretary
Phillip Hammond's government leadership – sadly, the response to the 'Express'
article suggests that many outside his department will take his direction back
to Roman times seriously.
If anyone knows Secretary Phillip Hammond's email address, I would appreciate
it if you passed on these two references to him:
http://www.metricationmatters.com/who-invented-the-metric-system.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
Cheers, and thanks to Ezra for passing on this reference,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric
system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each
year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides
services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for
commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and
in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA,
NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat
at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com or to get the free 'Metrication matters'
newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
