"Officials have a good gander at top gooseberries" was the title of a full report in the 'Whitby Gazette' on 13 August 2002 on the Egton Bridge Gooseberry Show. It followed a briefer report in the 9 August edition. Extracts from the two reports follow:

"Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Show celebrated its heaviest champion berry on the event's 200-year history. Geoff Bielby, of Thirsk, smashed the show record with his yellow woodpecker berry, which weighed in at 33 drams and 21 grains - more than two ounces. It was two drams heavier than the last record berry - also a yellow woodpecker - which beat the previous show record eight years ago.

RESULTS IN DETAIL:

1 G Bielby: 33 drams 21 grains (yellow woodpecker)
2 G Watson: 27-21 (yellow woodpecker)
3 Miss M Beswick: 25-24 (red woodpecker)..."

Tony Bennett

The "Egton Bridge Gooseberry Show".
It just scares me that attendees to these kind of shows also vote for a government.

Ralf

outstanding post
guess everybody knows the original for
the dram was the drachma which
in grecoroman was 1/6000 of a talent

attic talent was 60 minae
and a mina was 100 drachmas
several dictionaries including the
French Larousse say attic talent
was 26kilo(57pound), though the talent
and drachma varied the athens version
(57 pound talent) seems to have been
the most widespread and closest to a
standard at least in mediterranean and
europe.

there is a french and german word "drachm"
still in the dictionaries. the british simply
shortened it still further (as is their wont)
to dram. and also varied it all over the place
so there is the apoth. dram and the troy dram
and the avoird. dram and so forth.

i seriously believe there is room in the measuring
system for a 48 pound talent.

I have posted two sets of fables which
are told using the 48 pound unit (call it talent if you wish, or dog since it is the mass of a full-grown husky or malamute) and would appreciate any comment

http://www.planck.com/seriousunits/fables1/index.html

http://www.planck.com/seriousunits/fables2/index.html

this unit arises when one attempts to merge natural and traditional units--a synthesis earlier called bryan units which has now been somewhat streamlined
and to distinguish it from bryan is being called
serious units.

serious minute = 1/1600 of a day
serious mile = tenmillionth of distance light goes in minute
talent = 10**40 h-bar minute per sq. mile.

the serious minute is not intended to replace the unserious one (1/1440 day) we use for ordinary time-keeping. the serious minute is an optional alternate for technical uses like definitions. it is exactly 54 conventional seconds and exactly 9/10 of conventional minute. the talent comes out essentially (a fifth of a percent different from) 48 ordinary pounds, so it is made equal to 48 serious pounds--tweaking pound by two tenths of a percent. you can divide up the mile any way you please. different people have different ideas about most convenient way to divide up mile.
Bryan Parry has proposed a division into 1728 yards which has certain interesting aspects (very dozenzal) and I like the classic roman division of 1000 paces, which from Bryan's perspective has the fatal flaw of being yardless. But the basic point is we have a natural/traditional mile and talent (power of ten multiples of the units built into nature.)

Ralf,

In the light of your post, perhaps you could inform us just who should have the right to vote in a democratic society?

Tony Bennett

Tony,

I guess you willingly misinterpreted my post in order to ask me this question.
To give you a "PC" version of my post: People attending these kind of show seem to live in a world completely incomprehensible to me. Yet through our votes we wish for a government that serves both sides acceptably, which of course is quite a stretch.

I think you should interpret my post more as a "scratching my head" post.

Ralf
P.S.: To answer your question, everyone should be able to vote and each vote should have the same weight.

Leonard, I do believe in fact it IS acceptable to talk of 'drachms' instead on 'drams'. I would like it if in apothecaries measures it was a 'drachm' and for everyday life it was a 'dram'

....so long as it's in metric, ja?


(couldn't resist!)

Damn you brian! You sneeked your post in there before mine.

Now my last one looks incomprehensible.



.

Steve,

luckily the weights are unitless, so no discussion there ;)

Ralf