Have we reached the apex of national division? Or do these terrible chasms open up so fast that, as you hurl yourself towards the next, you forget the last – like an 80s video game? Half the country is wondering how much public contempt a government can survive before it perishes; the other half is rejoicing over a return to imperial measurements – and not a moment too soon. How else could the Queen go gladly into her platinum jubilee, if she weren’t confident of a return to the standards of [checks Wikipedia] 1826, a full 100 years before her birth? Where else would we reasonably find a spirit of national optimism and modernity, except in the late Regency era?
Personally, I have no problem with imperial measures. I learned to cook from a 1940s oven manual, full of very detailed, thrifty and complicated recipes, all in ounces – intended to get women out of the factories and back into the kitchen. It became one of my few party tricks, being able to multiply almost anything by 28 to get it in grams, to which I added being able to multiply anything by 2.2, then divide it by 14, to get kilos in stones and pounds. It’s only fun because it makes no sense; otherwise it would just be arithmetic.
