76. Metric Madness

In 2009, I was watching television in Cayman.  The European Champions League final was being played in Rome between Barcelona and Manchester United.   A free kick was awarded to Barcelona just outside the United penalty area.  The Manchester players wouldn’t retreat as far from the ball as the Swiss referee thought they should and so he strode ten paces to show the defenders where they should be.

Why ten paces?  Because the official rules of Association Football states that:

“For a direct or indirect free kick all opponents must be at least 9.15 metres from the ball until it is in play.”

So why did the ref stride 10 paces?  Because 10 paces are 10 yards, and 10 yards is 9.15 metres.

The metre is an absurd unit of measurement but so are many of the metric units we are compelled to use in daily life.  They are good for science but hopeless for everyday activity.  

The yard, like all Imperial units, is based upon human experience.  The basic Imperial measurement of length is the inch, and the inch is based on the width of a man’s thumb.

Anybody who is 6 feet tall, is tall – not very tall but tall.  Do you think that a man of 1.83 metres is tall?  Well, yes, he is.  He’s six feet tall.  The only useful or perhaps the only interesting metric measure of height is 2 metres.  Someone who is two metres tall is 6’ 7” and that is very tall.

Metric units are based on our physical natural world and not upon our experience.  The basic unit of metric length is the metre.  When it was first adopted, it was intended to be 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole.  Nowadays it is defined as the distance travelled by light through a vacuum in a tiny fraction of a second, so that is hardly based on everyday experience, is it?

“How much room have I got,” asks Caroline as she parks her car.

“About two feet,” I tell her.

I don’t say about 60 centimetres because a foot is a length that we come across all the time.  There are lots of things that are about a foot long from a loaf of bread to.…... well, a foot.

The acre is the Imperial unit of area, and it is the area of land that could be ploughed by a yoke of oxen in one working day.  What is a hectare?  A lot bigger that’s all and of no natural or human significance whatsoever.

The Fahrenheit temperature scale is more subtle and sensitive than Celsius:

°F	Human Experience	°C
30°F	Bitterly cold. Overcoat, scarf and gloves.	-1°C
45°F	Cold.  Warm clothing.	7°C
55°F	Not really cold but you need a jacket.	13°C
65°F	Mild. Jacket not needed.	18°C
75°F	Warm and pleasant.  Shirtsleeves.	23°C
80°F	Hot	27°C
90°F	Very hot.  Reluctant to leave the shade.	32°C
100°F	Unbearably hot.	37°C
110°F	Too hot for human activity.	42°C

For really noticeable change to take place a difference of 10°F has to occur but this change is only 5.6°C.  Too much change takes place too quickly when measuring temperature in centigrade.  It lacks the delicate variations of Fahrenheit. 

As someone who has slept more than 1500 nights in the tropics, I can tell you that the difference between a night-time temperature of 75°F and one of 80°F is the difference between comfort and sweaty restlessness, whereas 24°C doesn’t seem that much different from 26.6°C yet they are the same temperatures as 75 and 80°F.

It is in the kitchen that the Imperial measures really come into their own.  I am not a good cook, but I am effective.  As with most things in life that I try, I can do it adequately but not wonderfully well.  I have a tendency, when cooking, not to follow recipes but to bung in anything that takes my fancy and seems right.  I also tend to work to ratios rather than absolute measures but when I do need a measure, give me a teaspoon of vinegar over 5 millilitres every time.  It’s easier and much more convenient.

There is no internationally agreed standard definition of the cup and its volume ranges between 200 and 285 milliliters, but a cup of milk is so much easier to obtain, handle and estimate than 250 ml.  When cooking, a teaspoon, a dessertspoon, and a cup are readily to hand and match up well with other Imperial measures.  For example, a rounded tablespoon of flour is 1 ounce in weight and a cup of liquid is half a pint.

My car averages 45 miles per gallon of fuel (15.8 km/l).  It also therefore does 9.9 miles per litre.  If it would do 50 miles to the gallon it would make a big impact on my motoring costs and a similar improvement in fuel efficiency would give just less than 11 miles per litre (17.6 km/l).  Although the improvement is the same, it hardly seems significant, does it?  I assume that is why vehicle manufacturers still give figures in miles per gallon. 

I suppose that problem would be solved if they used kilometres rather than miles but again the mile is a unit based on human experience.  There was huge worldwide interest when the first four-minute mile was run but nobody got very excited when someone first ran 1609.34 metres in less than 4 minutes and even average ability club runners can run 1500 metres in under 4 minutes.

George Orwell anticipated the problem that we are having.  In the novel 1984, when Winston Smith went into a pub, he witnessed an altercation between an old man and the barman.  The old man had asked for a pint of beer:

“You telling me you ain't got a pint mug in the 'ole bleeding boozer?"

"And what in hell's name is a pint?" said the barman, leaning forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter.

"E could 'a drawed me off a pint," grumbled the old man as he settled down behind a glass. "A 'alf litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price."

“You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,” said Winston tentatively.

Spot on, George!  Let’s stop this madness while we can.

75. Calm down!

Last July, Caroline and I were standing on the shore of Coniston Water with John and Sue Standring.  John, Dave, Roger and I, who had all been students at Durham together, were staying with our wives in a house that is owned by a friend of us all who had also been at Durham with us.  It is on the shore of the lake and Tony invites us to stay there for a week every year.

Coniston was flat calm and empty of any craft.  There are rarely any yachts or canoes to be seen this far from Coniston village, about four miles to the north.  The day before it had rained as it sometimes can in the Lake District when over 50 millimetres had fallen in 24 hours but now it was dry, warm and there wasn’t a sound to be heard.

The tranquil, still and serene scene was interrupted by the sight of three swimmers accompanied by a quietly chugging motor boat, moving steadily down the centre of the lake about two hundred yards off shore.  They were probably on their way to Coniston village, Caroline told us in a tone that sounded both knowledgeable and authoritative.  (She has the habit of doing that when she hasn’t got a clue what she is talking about).

“Do you know there’s an annual Windermere swim?” John asked Caroline.

Oh no!  I could see immediately where this was going to end up.  Two minutes later John and Caroline had agreed that next year they would both enter The Great North Swim.  Sue and I thought then and do now, that they were both mad.

“You’re both mad,” I told them, trying to sound both knowledgeable and authoritative but failing as I always do.  “Do you know what the temperature of the water is?  Below fifteen Celsius.  That’s less than sixty Fahrenheit!  You’ll freeze!”

 “You certainly can’t do it,” I told Caroline.  “All the others will be doing the crawl and you can’t.  Also, you haven’t got a wet suit.  You left yours in Cayman.”

Caroline is a very strong swimmer, much better than I am.  In Cayman, in our pool at Prospect Reef where the water temperature was never less than 28°C (83°F), she could almost complete two lengths while I swam one but she can only do the breaststroke.  She has never mastered the front crawl.

“I’ll learn the crawl and I’ll hire a wet suit,” Caroline said emphatically, turning away from me to discuss plans with John.  Sue and I looked at each other helplessly and sighed.

Caroline is an enthusiast.  Most things she experiences are wonderful.  “This is the best mashed potato I’ve ever had,” is typical of the sort of reaction she has to things.  There was a stretch of coastline just to the east of our house in Cayman that whenever we passed it, inspired her to exclaim wistfully, “Isn’t it beautiful?”  It was so predictable that I got to know the fence post we would be passing as she said it and I was consequently, to her irritation, able to say it at exactly the same moment.

I know that once Caroline has an idea in her head she will see it through to the end.  My problem is that I often have to feign interest and enthusiasm too.

As soon as we got back to London she was on the phone to her friend Gabi.  Gabi had been on a swimming course spread over several weeks and is now an accomplished crawler.  (She is a good swimmer too).

“I can’t commit myself to six evenings over six weeks,” Caroline told Gabi.  “I’m too busy.  I haven’t got the time.”

“Champneys at Tring do a one-day intensive course,” said Gabi.  “You can do it on a Sunday.  It will only cost you a couple of hundred.”

Caroline’s sister, Joanna, agreed to accompany her and do the course as well.  Joanna is nearly as mad as Caroline but not quite as mad as she has no intention of doing the Windermere swim.  The course was to start at 9:00 a.m. and at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning Joanna arrived to pick up Caroline.

Tring is just over 30 miles away and as there was virtually no traffic, they arrived very early, just before eight o’clock.  That wasn’t a bad thing, however, as there are lots of interesting things to see and do at Champneys Spa.

They went to change and then, in their swimming costumes but wearing dressing gowns, they wandered around.  They walked around the grounds and had coffee.  Apparently, women walking about in dressing gowns are a common sight at Champneys.  At nine o’clock they arrived back at Reception to ask where the swimming course was taking place.

“In there,” the receptionist said, pointing to a door next to the changing room.  “They’ve already started though.”

Caroline and Joanna rushed into the changing room, took off their dressing gowns and then, wearing only their swimming costumes, ran out again.  Caroline was putting on her goggles as she ran.

They opened the door and burst in expecting to find that they were in the pool area.  But it wasn’t the pool.  It was a lecture theatre and there, sat in silence, fully dressed and listening intently to the instructor, were the fifteen other course participants.

Being late was a little embarrassing but not as embarrassing as the fact that Caroline and Joanna were both semi naked.

“The first hour is dry,” the instructor told them helpfully.  “Of course, you can wear whatever you’re comfortable in but do you want to go and get changed again?”

“Yes please,” they mumbled as they shuffled off.

That’s what can happen when you are too damned enthusiastic.

74. Humps

In 2004 Lucy, my younger daughter, got married.  I, of course, had to make the “Father of the Bride” speech.  I haven’t been to many weddings and so I wasn’t very sure what was expected of me.  I knew that I was supposed to say nice things about the bride and the groom and that was easy enough but what else should I say?

Caroline suggested that I tried to say something funny.  I have a thing about speed bumps. What a misnomer. If anything, they slow you down!  I thought of a little joke I could make about them but the question was, at whose expense?  I decided that I shouldn’t say anything remotely smutty in connection with Lucy or David the groom but that Lucy’s godmother and her husband (let’s call them Janet and John – some of you will know who they really are) were a fair and easy target.

The moment came and as I concluded my short and probably dull discourse, both Janet and John sat there, half listening but revelling in the comfort and glow that comes when you have finished all the champagne that someone else has paid for and were now trying assiduously to test the capacity of the wine cellar, again at my expense.

“At that table over there,” I said, pointing airily in the general direction of their table, “hidden behind those many, many empty wine bottles, is Janet, Lucy’s godmother and her husband John.

“They had an interesting visit to Longleat a few years ago,” I told the 80 or so guests.

“They arrived at the gatehouse at the end of the long drive at about half past ten in the morning but they didn’t make it to the actual entrance of the Safari and Adventure Park until two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“The problem,” I continued, wondering whether the several old ladies from Middlesbrough who made up a large part of my audience would get the joke and would not be too shocked if they did, “was that there was a sign at the start of the drive saying ‘Hump Every 50 Yards’ and always ready for a challenge, that’s exactly what they did.”

A few people were kind enough to laugh a little but not Janet.  I was watching her as I delivered the punch line and there wasn’t even the flicker of a smile across her face.

Nothing was ever said about the matter – until last night.

Yesterday was my birthday and John, Janet, Caroline and I went out to celebrate it in a rather nice restaurant.  At about 10:30 and having consumed the best part of two bottles of wine (which he insisted on paying for), John leant across the table towards me.

“Can I ask you a question?” he slurred.

“Of course,” I told him.

“Do you remember, at Lucy’s wedding, telling everyone about Janet and me at Longleat?

I nodded.

“Who told you about that?” he demanded.  “It wasn’t me was it?  Janet thinks I told you once when I’d been drinking.”

For the last seven years they have been accusing each other of disloyalty and gross indiscretion. 

“How did he know?  You must have told him,” is what they have been saying to each other and all the while both of them have been inwardly worried that it was they who had blabbed but were so drunk when they did that they couldn’t remember doing it.

They were both very relieved when I told them that I could have made any number of couples the butt of the joke and it was just chance that made me use them.

Naturally, Caroline and I were very keen to find out what actually happened and we questioned them intensively. 

It seems that there is a secluded wooded area adjacent to the Longleat Drive that will forever have a special place in Janet’s and John’s hearts and memories.