Measure Theory

      "Man is the measure of all things." wrote Protagoras, but he was clearly wrong - man size meals maybe, but just try asking for half a man of cheese next time you're cooking pizza. More practical civilisations have created all manner of different measures, from the biblical cubit which divinely transcends everyday geometry, to henrys, that measure resistance to change (although usually in electric circuits rather than, say, the Tory party). Sadly many of these are now dying out, under threat from the all pervasive metric system. Soon such things as terapins may no longer exist, which is a shame since a terapin (not a reptilian pet, but 4.5 trillion gallons of beer, needing to be kept in a tanker rather than a tank) is a unique and irreplaceable measure. Measure diversity is decreasing rapidly, although at (due to technical difficulties) an unmeasurable rate.

      Of the old ways, none was as convoluted, as ceaselessly arbitrary or as full of idiosyncratic charm as the Imperial system. It shows the mark of a great genius, or a great many morons - it's hard to tell which. Our monetary system (12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound, but really much more complicated with farthings, florins, crowns and guineas mixed in) kept foreigners thoroughly confused until it vanished in 1971 and British Rail had to take over the job. The symbol for pence was not 'p' but 'd', short for 'durr', the sound people's brains made back then when trying to work out the change.

      Imperial lengths and weights are still used both here and abroad, although not everyone agrees as to what they are. Our pints, for example, are an intoxicating 10% bigger than American pints. More understandably, the US hundredweight is 100 lbs, but the original English hundredweight is of course 112 lbs. In a bid to cut transport costs or just discourage joggers, an Irish mile is significantly longer than anyone else's. And remember the kid at school who thought it immensely clever to ask "Which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?"?. Cambridge being what it is, he's probably at your college now. Find him (he'll be in the library) and ask him whether or not a pound of gold is heavier than a pound of feathers. Bizarrely, the gold is lighter, being measured in Troy weights, although an ounce of gold would be heavier than an ounce of, say, saffron (more expensive than gold per ounce. But whose ounce?).

      A sad example of the moral ambiguity of toady's society is that few people know what scruples are. A scruple is a measure of weight (approx. 1.3 grams) and I have always suffered from having far too many scruples. There is a way of losing weight without dieting though. Weight is, after all, a measure and only what we define it to be. At the Institute of Weights and Measures somewhere near Paris there is a lump of platinum that is the official kilogram. Just break in and replace it with a larger lump and everything in the world would instantly weigh less...

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