Monthly Archives: April 2008

LACORS confirms imperial units illegal for office floorspace – Government advice misleading

Posted on 2008-04-29 by Erithacus

LACORS (the Local Authority Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services) has confirmed its earlier advice that, where office floorspace is let per unit of floorspace, that unit must be metric. In doing so, it implicitly says that previous Government advice on this … Continue reading →

Posted in Consumer affairs, Law | 6 Comments

A snapshot from planet USA

Posted on 2008-04-22 by derekp

A reader has returned from an extensive tour of the USA, and has provided Metric Views with a personal view on their version of two-system systems of weights and measures. (Article contributed by Tony Wilson)

Posted in Views from abroad | 2 Comments

UK pays the cost of failure to implement the Vienna Convention

Posted on 2008-04-17 by derekp

The Department for Transport (DfT) continues to ignore the clear advantages of the adoption of the international norms for road signage, namely the use of metric units, while potentially preventable accidents occur on our roads.

Posted in Law, Road signs, Transport | 22 Comments

First Emperor showed the way – 2000 years ago

Posted on 2008-04-12 by Erithacus

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the splendid (Chinese) First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum. Apart from the terracotta warriors, what impressed me the most was the way that Qin Shihuangdi imposed standardisation on his vast empire – … Continue reading →

Posted in Consumer affairs, General, History, Law, Myths | 4 Comments

The London Marathon

Posted on 2008-04-06 by admin

This weekend thousands of runners will test themselves to the full in the annual Flora London Marathon. At 42.195 km, it is a race of endurance. But why 42.195 km? That is tied up in the history of the 1908 … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Media, Sport | 9 Comments

Decimal measures to oust inches and miles

Posted on 2008-04-01 by Isaac

But seriously folks. The article below was an April fool joke but the decimal tape measure is real. In Britain surveyors did use the decimalised foot before going metric. Clearly they recognised the advantages of a decimal system but realised … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Law | 11 Comments