Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Well, metric is based on 10 which makes it so much easier than Imperial.
I have tried to bake according to Imperial and it's really hard!

In the UK there was BIG fight because there was an EU legislation that was literally forcing the UK to start using metric in shops, for selling meat, cheese etc.

People were so angry. One grocer were actually sentenced to prison (not long, just a few weeks) because he refused to make the switch. People from all of England drove to his shop to to buy their groceries to show their support, so he made lots of money from it. He became a sort of anti-EU hero in the evening papers.

I thought it was brilliant because I was literally incapable of learning Imperial and suddenly I could say "Give me 500 gram of that" etc. Previously I had to guess at Imperial.

The shop staff was totally confused and did not know for example "hecto" or "decimetre" even though they are normal metric measurements. Everything had to be given in the most basic units that were on the actual scales or ruler, or they were confused.
Rather funny for me and all the French and German expats in the area were I lived.

Then suddenly they changed back.. Imperial became allowed again, but the good thing was that you could continue use gram if you wanted and as a result I never used metric.
The problem in the UK is that there are about three generations of adults who were educated after the introduction of metric and so don't really understand imperial, but social inertia has prevented metric from being taken up across-the-board, so we've ended up with an odd muddle where, for example, we buy fuel in litres, but describe fuel economy in terms of miles-per-gallon.

The result is that many people, such as me, don't really understand either system particularly well and treat all units of measurement as arbitrary labels.

British TV news always give temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. I have no idea why they can't make up their minds and my vote is obviously on Celsius even though I have a basic idea of Fahrenheit by now.
This hasn't been true for years. It might be the case that presenters occasionally mention fahrenheit during broadcasts, but they don't routinely display the temperature that way any more. The Weather page on the BBC site doesn't even give you the option to view temperatures in F.

Another really dangerous thing is the left hand traffic in the UK.
It is both INCREDIBLY dangerous - people die every year because of this! And expensive for people who cannot continue using their car if they move between the UK and another country, because the steering wheel is on the wrong side.
Sorry, but what are you talking about? Dangerous for whom? Who dies? The only people who have a problem with driving on the left are those driving unsuitable cars, and those more used to driving on the right, both of which are true no matter which side you're talking about.