Susannes Folksong-Notizen
[1989:] A song about the metric system - I hate it. (Intro Iain MacKintosh)
[1995:] From 'M-day' on 1 October the law will demand that a plethora of goods be sold in metric units. [...] National suspicion of the metric system is as old as the system itself, introduced in post-revolutionary France in the 1790s. It was shunned on this side of the Channel as a hideous continental invention. In 1965, the Labour government, fired by modernising zeal, decided the country should turn metric. Since then, the timetable has been pushed back. The arrival of decimal currency day, on 15 February 1971, aroused fresh fears, and during the Seventies and Eighties, the Government consistently ignored the efforts of the Metrication Board to step up the pace. The board was quietly abolished in 1980. But the process continued. In 1981, petrol stations replaced gallons with litres [...]. When the pint and the mile came under threat in the late Eighties, Mrs Thatcher stepped in. As a result, M-day next month will represent a watered-down version of what might have been - the traditional British pint of bitter recategorised as 568.3 millilitres. [...] Long gone are the days of catastrophic metric mix-ups - the most spectacular, in 1983, involved a Canadian Jumbo jet forced to crash land after it ran out of fuel at 39,000ft (the plane had been mistakenly loaded with 22,300 lbs, rather than 22,300 kg of fuel). (Roger Tredre, Observer, 3 September)
[1995:] Britain went fully metric on 1 October - no pints or gallons any more, just litres, no pounds, just kilos, no inches or yards. You didn't know, did you? Neither did we! (Intro Iain MacKintosh)
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