I propose to invent a new imperial system with the queen's weight as basic unit. We'll call it "1 Queen".

Then we'll take the average of the sum of Tony Blair's weight and Margaret Thatcher's weight, and call it "1 Prime Minister".

For the smaller units, I propose taking the weight of my gold fish (=1 Fishy).

Liquids will be measured in "imploded television tubes" (=ITT). I filled my television tube with water, and it found out that it held about 7 gallons.

This way our difficult imperial system can easily be modernised.

L Higgins

BTW: I weigh 0.98 PMs or 1.3 Qs

Those who propose systems of units normally
feel it is their honor and duty to serve as
wine-taster or guinea-pig and try living with
the proposed units for a few months to see how
well they work. Higgins I hope you are doing your
inventor's job properly and are using Fishy and
Prime Minister units in every aspect of your
life. The daffier you get, no doubt the more we
will hear from you.

Andrew Usher stays in touch by email although he
has posted here only rarely of late, and indicates
that he is working out a version of pound-inch units
in which:

1. the inch and pound mass unit are indistinguishable
from the inch and pound we already have.

2. the norm for gravity is 1 so that the force unit
is equal to the weight of unit mass in standard
gravity

3. in ordinary circumstances time is told in the
familiar units of hours, minutes, and seconds but
for some technical purposes (like physics problems)
there is a small "trice" time unit of around a
twentieth of a second. In his Andrew's version the
trice is about 1/19.67.. of a second I believe although
not defined as such.

4. the standard speed of light is exactly
600 million inches per trice.

IN POINTS 1,2,3 ANDREW'S SYSTEM is pretty much the
same as what we've been discussing in the pound-inch
thread and comparing with metric for working physics
problems. I've always used a 1/19.65 second time unit
defining it this way but Andrew's 1/19.67 is not
qualitatively much different. THE ONLY REAL DIFFERENCE
seems to be that his version has a clean-looking
speed of light.

There may be other differences he hasn't yet spelled
out in detail.
It will be quite easy for Andrew to do the wine-tasting on his system because he will just have to
use already familiar units (pound, inch) consistently
and the small extra time unit only in certain technical
contexts. I am kind of intrigued by the 600,000,000
for the speed of light. It might make the system
attractive as an alternative to use in physics coursework (where it is a good idea to expose students
to more than one system so they don't get the
mistaken impression there is one sole "right" one.)

Maybe Andrew, if still reading at BWMA, will step in
and correct any errors I may have made in detail
about this variant of pound-inch.