Here's a good case for those who advocate 'persuasion' or 'force' to shift the British from their obstinate habit of preferring friendly Imperial to ivory tower laboratory metric measurements despite their esteemed political leaders having told them 40 years ago: 'Britain is going metric'.

Every year over the past few years, an increasing number of private garden owners in Essex have opened their gardens to the public during the summer, raising money for local charities into the bargain.

This year, the catalogue contains 36 entries, including Writtle Agricultural College.

References to the distances of the gardens from the nearest town are 100% Imperial e.g. "4m south of Harlow", "drive entrance on right 200 yds past telephone box" etc.

References to the area of the gardens is 97% Imperial, i.e. just one garden out of 36 has elected to describe his garden area as '17 hectares' instead of the more usual "135ft x 60ft enthusiast's garden" or "50 acres of parkland".

Now, if there was a case for ordering uniformity - which is not the British way of doing things but is more the continental way - then the owner of the 17-hectare garden would be ordered to fall in with the rest and use acres in future.

But no, the metric advocates on this board would happily use Euro regulations (which already require government and local authority bureaucrats to use metric weights and measures) to force garden-owners to use metric by compulsion, despite overwhelming use of Imperial.

Mind you, the 17-hectare bloke seems to have a bit of an agenda. One of the highlights of his garden is said to be the 'euro-wood', which he defiantly spells using the euro-symbol for the 'e'. He's a bit out of touch with most of the 5,000 15-year-old readers of the teenage 'Bliss' magazine, who took part in a recent survey on their political attitudes. As many as 87% of them (4,350) said we should keep the pound and reject the euro.

See also www.ngs.org.uk

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As many as 87% of them (4,350) said we should keep the pound and reject the euro.
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I am not patronising Bliss readers, but the majority of these are teenage girls if not younger who read it. Therefore I don't think that we should really take note of this poll as many will not really know what the euro is all about. Many just don't like the idea of change.

To make a justified decision on the euro, you need to know the economic consequences on joining and let's be realistic, at 13 or 14, how many people in this really know or understand these? I only started understanding about interest rates, the economy, etc when I did A-Level economics.

re (Richard): "To make a justified decision on the euro, you need to know the economic consequences on joining and let's be realistic, at 13 or 14, how many people in this [survey?] really know or understand these? I only started understanding about interest rates, the economy, etc when I did A-Level economics".

REPLY: Those surveyed were all 15 years old. As a matter of interest, the government now proposes that 16-year-olds should have the vote, under the slogan: "If they're old enough to work, they're old enough to vote".

The main reason for this change, though, is, er, to bump up the Labour vote

Metrication and the Euro.

You just can't keep 'em seperate in your head, can you Tony ?

Yes Tony, in fact, it might be an idea to raise the voting age to 21. Probably more bad than good'ld come from that, but lowering it to 16 certainly is not a way to go. It scares me how poorly informed and generally dim people are ay my age- people only seem really to come into themselves at around 25-ish (incidentally the age from which men could vote in ancient Athens). whatever, I think lowering it is a crackers idea.

Re: Gardens of Essex 2004: A Case for 'Persuasion' or even 'Force'? March 14 2004, 11:05 PM

Yes Tony, in fact, it might be an idea to raise the voting age to 21. Probably more bad than good'ld come from that, but lowering it to 16 certainly is not a way to go. It scares me how poorly informed and generally dim people are ay my age- people only seem really to come into themselves at around 25-ish (incidentally the age from which men could vote in ancient Athens). whatever, I think lowering it is a crackers idea.

Good reasoning, just leave it where it is.