Dear friend

Every country in the world has adopted the metric system. Well okay that's not true. Liberia, Burma and the US haven't. But the UK has! Sort of. Almost… Okay, the UK has such a fucked up combination of measurements that it leaves many tourists and locals insanely confused. Let's just have a rundown of the bullshit I have to deal with daily, shall we?

• Food is sold in by the kilogram ... unless you're in a street market, in which case they'll usually be sold by the pound. (Which - might I state for the record - is against UK law)
• Liquids (and containers) are sold by the litre ... except for milk (which is very commonly sold in pints), and alcohol - which is sold in pints - unless it's a shot, then it's millilitres again.
• Cars engines are rated, and petrol is sold, by the litre ... but we measure efficiency with miles per gallon.
• Your height and weight is recorded at the doctor with metric units ... but you almost certainly ask for your height in feet/inches, and your weight in stone.
• Similarly, if you have a child, their birth weight was recorded in kilograms ... but everyone asks for the weight in pounds.

While we're on the subject of weight, why the fuck do British people insist on using stones? Look I get it. You're used to archaic units that make no sense. “Imperial triumphs all”, am I right? Except… Do you realise that stones were discarded as a recognised unit in 1985? The only reason practically everybody still uses it is because their parents and their parents' parents (etc.) are used to them. It's another thing I hate about the British, their stubbornness and resistance to change - but that's a rant for another day.

1 mile is made up of 1760 yards. Or 8 furlongs. 1 yard is made up of 3 feet. 1 foot is made up of 12 inches. 1 inch is made up of 3 barley corns. Did you know what a barley corn was before today? Honestly? Did you really? No? That's because it's a ridiculous unit. You probably didn't even know that the barley corn is how your shoe size is measured. I'll also posit that I've just blown your mind.

This is the reason I hate it: The divisions are arbitrary - as proven by my previous paragraph. Metric conforms to factors of 10. 10mm = 1cm. 10cm = 1dm. 10dm = 1m. 10m = 1Dm. 10Dm = 1km. Nice, orderly, consistent, easy for math.

So why the hell are we using this crazy, outdated, nonsensical “system” of measurements where we have cups and quarts and feet and stones? Pfft. It annoys me. We need to get rid of it. Now.

/rant