This morning’s radio brought the news that the EU has given up on insisting that the United Kingdom give up Imperial measures. Previously, the EU had required that all measures in the UK should be metricised by 2010. Now, the industry commissioner has said that the “great British pint, of milk or beer or cider” as well as the mile and the pound and ounce, will no longer have to be jettisoned, and all decisions about their future will be left up to the British government.
Two-edged sword here. Already British industries that export are likely to use metric measures predominantly, as their principal markets use them. However, there have been “metric martyrs” here, who have been prosecuted for selling bananas by the pound rather than the kilo. If the British government relaxes the rules put forth so far, it will seen as though it is caving in to the anti-Europeans among us. If it does not, then the great unwashed here will say that the government is not taking advantage of the opportunity to emphasize our Britishness.
Make hay by the pound or kilo while the sun shines (as it is doing right at this moment here in London).
Dame Anita Roddick has died of a massive stroke; she was the founder of The Body Shop, a mecca for non-animal-tested cosmetics for many years. I admired her courage in the face of having contracted hepatitis C through a blood transfusion, and think that the Body Shop products that I use (deodorant, in a pump-aerosol bottle, and after-shave balm) are first-rate, and the fact that they are ethically produced without being tested on animals is a plus.
Thought for the Day this morning was not on 9/11; it was on the Madeleine McCann continuing story, and my bishop, Tom Butler, gave it. Unfortunately, the announcer introduced him as “the Reverend Tom Butler” rather than as “the Right Reverend”, and this, for some unknown reason, galls me. I get very exercised over news reporters and announcers who do not get such minutiae correct. If they can’t get the small things right, what about the great ones? Bishop Butler told a story that was told to him by a vicar when Butler was a curate years ago. The vicar had taken his parish on an outing to the ocean, and a little girl was lost while on the outing and the coach had to return without her. The girl was never found. He compared this with the Madeleine McCann story, and prepares us for the eventuality that Madeleine’s fate may never be known.