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This is an article in The Independent, my once beloved paper which is now simply a vehicle to twist any given news item to fit its relentless and tiresome Brexi
by detritus 5y ago
This is an article in The Independent, my once beloved paper which is now simply a vehicle to twist any given news item to fit its relentless and tiresome Brexit = Bad narrative. We get it, Indy, but you're not achieving anything.
This is simply the government changing the law to allow anyone who may be so inclined to sell in Imperial to do so without threat of the law. That's it.
This isn't Brexit Britain taking back up the Old Ways and rescinding metric, of course not. Most people my generation and older have barely the vaguest handle on how imperial units work anyway (beyond weed deals in my twenties...). Metric's going nowhere.
- fzzzy 5y agoSo what is the point of them doing this then?
- detritus 5y agoSome people like buying milk in pints, food in ounces, lengths of materials in inches and feet; Some people like selling the same. Now they can do so and it's not illegal for them to do so. That's it. I don't care either - it's a non-story.
- rb12345 5y agoYou can actually do most of this today; you just need to have the metric equivalent amount at least as visible on the packaging and pricing labels to satisfy the EU rules. Milk is still sold in pints (technically some multiple of ~0.57 l, but near enough), some foods (e.g. jam) are still sold in 454g (i.e. 1 lb) amounts. All changing the rules does is allow you to remove the metric sizing, and I'm not convinced there's any burning desire for that. (The "metric martyrs" were largely against the additional work to add metric prices alongside Imperial ones; most places today no doubt use software to generate the price labels and will just keep things as-is.)
- fzzzy 5y agoIt's a huge waste of time to do this just because some people that are about to die "like" buying things in bizarre units.
- detritus 5y agoWhat's a waste of time, exactly? No one is obliged to use the old units.
- somewhereoutth 5y agoCulture war basically - so they can continue to soak up the votes of the reactionary right. A bit like the Texas abortion law, but without the horror.
- fzzzy 5y agoYes. Waste of time and money.