I've never got on with metric since I accidentally asked a butcher in France for 200 kilos of beef mince. It slowly dawned on me I should have said grams as he cheerfully stuffed half a herd of cattle down the mincer.
It's a sad fact that in the UK you are more likely to go to prison for dealing drugs in ounces rather than grams than for actually dealing drugs.
Apart from anything else- metric's a waste of breath. I'm one meter, seventy eight centimeters tall. That's 11 syllables! In English, I'm 5 10 - only two syllables- job done.
There's a small village near here called Six mile Bottom which will have to be renamed 'Ten Kilometer Bottom' - sounds crap! (Although I think it was named after one of my ex's). The Famous Rowley Mile Course here in Newmarket would have to become the Rowley 1.6 kilometers course. Frankly, that's just hideous.
And what about music? The Proclaimers would, god forbid, have to walk '800 kilometers'. In The Police's 'Can't stand losing you' the line 'Your brother's gonna kill me and he's 6 feet 10' would be 'your brother's gonna kill me and he's 2.0828 meters'. Neil Diamond would no longer be '1000 miles away' but '1600 kilometers away'. (Some would say that's not far enough either way). Golden Earring would no longer be 8 miles high but 13 kilometers- all sounds a bit cold, clinical and dull to me. And none of it scans.
Finally, it's a well known fact that since British house builders started using metric, more new houses than ever have collapsed, simply becasue there are fewer meters than feet.*
*There's a small chance I made that bit up.
