The Council of Active Resistance to Metrication is pleased to announce that BBC Three Counties Radio [Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire] have invited our Secretary, Tony Bennett, to be their guest on their 9 o'clock show tomorrow morning (24 May).

The BBC say that it's the 40th anniversary of Harold Wilson's famous 'We Shall Go Metric' speech.

They want to grill Tony about why we 'haven't gone metric yet' and ask him 'isn't it about time we completed the process and got it over with?'

Maybe they have been talking to Lord Howe

Apologies in advance Tony, but I couldn't resist this!

I have a very eclectic music collection, and recall an interview with a certain guitar legend. I reproduce the final question of the interview below....

"Well, it's time to wrap it up, so tell us the most important thing people should know about Teisco Del Rey?

Teisco: That he never refers to himself in third person."

Dunno why, but your post above brought that interview to mind!

(And lets not get into second person/third person arguments - enjoy your 15 minutes of fame!)

Tony was also interviewed today for BBC Radio Humberside

For those folks trying to track down this radio station going by the moniker ‘’3CountiesRadion’’, good luck, because it doesn’t have a call sign. Since 1856 in the United Kingdom, it has been a legal requirement to have a call sign, and to broadcast it. But the United Kingdom is a socialist state, so nobody has to care about the rule of law anymore.

In 1912 the London Radio & Telegraph Conference assigned call signs to the entire world.

Don’t fall off your chair laughing, but the Town of London is in the United Kingdom!

B--- United Kingdom
G--- United Kingdom
M--- United Kingdom
VAA- to VGZ- Dominion of Canada
VHA- to VKZ- Federation of Australia
VLA- to VMZ- Dominion of New Zealand
VNA- to VNZ- Union of South Africa
VOA- to VOZ- Dominion of New Foundland
VPA- to VSZ- United Kingdom Charter Colonies & Proprietary Colonies & Crown Colonies
VTA- to VWZ- Empire of India

The illegal ‘’3CountiesRadio’’ radio mast is on the Lewsey Farm, Town of North Luton, in Bedford County, England State, United Kingdom. But you won’t find the unsigned illegal radio station there. All you’ll find is an empty field with a radio mast in the middle. However the rest of Lewsey Farm has recently disappeared under a slew of badly built projects. In fact, none of them even have a cellar.

Apparently all broadcasts of the illegal ‘’3CountiesRadio’’ radio station, are fed out from an office at #1 Hastings St., Town of Luton, out to the radio mast on the Lewsey Farm. There the transmissions are put out on the following:

630.00 AM
98.000 FM
103.80 FM
95.500 FM
104.50 FM
94.700 FM

Hopefully when Tony shows up there, he’ll ask this ‘’3CountiesRadio’’ for their radio call sign, and when they can’t give it, kick them off the air, and seize their equipment as evidence for a grand jury’s indictment.

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

XCOLE wrote

<<
Since 1856 in the United Kingdom, it has been a legal requirement to have a call sign
>>


... and I always thought that Marconi developed the wireless in 1895! True Victoria was queen in 1856 and was still queen in 1895.

Might be worth seeing if any of those stations do a 'play again' feature (like radio 1) to see if we can hear said interview.....

The Three Counties Radio interview was a doddle.

The interviewer had prepared some really clever trick questions.

The first two were designed to boost his view that metric and decimal was much simpler than British weights and measures and pounds, shillings and pence.

His first question: "What's 50p. plus 25p.?" drew the rapid response, within a couple of nanoseconds: "15 bob", which threw him off course straightaway.

Then (his second prepared question), he asked me what 14/11d. plus 2/6d. was. My equally swift answer was: "Why, 17/5d. of course", which left him completely floundering.

Plain sailing from there on!

In both interviews, my theme was: "We're quite happy with our mixed system as we have it, there's no need to change it any further by using criminal laws to force us to change" - and the interviewers had no real answer to that.

The second interviewer started off by asking me my height in metric, to which I answered very swiftly: "1 metre 87 centimetres".

"Oh", he said, not having expected an answer, "er, what's that in our system?".

"Six feet one-and-and-half inches", I replied.

"Ah, below me, then, I'm six foot three, that means I'm about, er, well, just below two metres, I guess".

Again, plain sailing after that.

Am looking forward to the 50th anniversary of Harold Wilson's famous speech

The references to old-style money will do your argument no favours at all. It will merely show you as someone stuck in a time-warp.

<<<"We're quite happy with our mixed system as we have it, there's no need to change it any further by using criminal laws to force us to change" - and the interviewers had no real answer to that.>>>

They had no answer to that!? They obviously hadn't researched the activities of a certain 'ARM' then!!

re (Andy): "The references to old-style money will do your argument no favours at all. It will merely show you as someone stuck in a time-warp".


REPLY: But I have a Nokia mobile 'phone and use Broadband.

Note: if you read the post again, it was the interviewer who was keen to point out that decimal money was better than 'old money' by asking me what 14/11d. and 2/6d. was

Hey Andy,

There's no Arm in that!

:-D

Tony Bennett:
"His first question: "What's 50p. plus 25p.?" drew the rapid response, within a couple of nanoseconds: "15 bob", which threw him off course straightaway.

Then (his second prepared question), he asked me what 14/11d. plus 2/6d. was. My equally swift answer was: "Why, 17/5d. of course", which left him completely floundering."

Stan:
I heard the broadcast. It was with "big George" at around 09:15.

From my recollection your answer to the second question was a little hesitant compared to the first.

A better test though would have been something like what is 14s 11d + 10%

"From my recollection your answer to the second question was a little hesitant compared to the first."

A fan is amongst us!

re (Stan): "A better test though would have been something like what is 14s 11d + 10%"

REPLY: Well, 179p. + 10%, 196.9p, just short of 16/5d. - but not that easy in metric, either

Tony says

"196.9p, just short of 16/5d"

I make 16s/5d equal to just over 84p. Are you dyslexic Tony, or are you confusing "d" & "p"?

If Tony requires "a couple of nanoseconds" to answer questions far more tricky than "what does 196.9p equal in £/s/d", can we assume that he had prior notice of the questions?

Or did he actually do this sum.....

14s 11d = (14x12)+11= 179 (and that would be "d", rather than "p" as Tony states)

179+10%=179+17 and 9/10 (remember that Tony thinks that fractions are better than decimals! - This is one of his big arguments for retention of imperial!)

Answer, 196 and 9/10

Divide by 12 to get it back into shillings gives 16 shillings and 4 and 9/10 pennies

Or 16 shillings and just under 5 pennies.

Simplicity itself!

Did that take you 2 nanoseconds Tony?

14/11d plus 10%:

Say 15 bob, add 10% (one-and-half shillings) = 16/6d.:

Take off a penny:

Near enough 16/5d.

[Probably about 24 nanoseconds]

Amazingly quick Tony, but it isn't mathematically correct (or accurate)

"14/11d plus 10%:

Say 15 bob, add 10% (one-and-half shillings) = 16/6d.:

Take off a penny:

Near enough 16/5d."

But lets apply the same logic to 14/10d

14/10d plus 10%:

Say 15 bob, add 10% (one-and-half shillings) = 16/6d.:

Take off a penny:

Near enough 16/5d.

But isn't 14/10d plus 10% equal to 16/4d?

How do you estimate how much to take off due to your use of rounding at the "say 15 bob" stage?

And what if the rounding takes you to something like 17/-

ie
17/1d plus 10%

Say 17 bob, add 10% (one and seven tenths shillings) (about 1/8d) = 18/7d

Add on a penny

Near enough 18/8d

But the correct answer is 18/10d!

re (Beranger): "17/1d plus 10% --- Say 17 bob, add 10% (one and seven tenths shillings) (about 1/8d) = 18/7d --- Add on a penny --- Near enough 18/8d --- But the correct answer is 18/10d!"


REPLY: Doh! 17/1d. is obviously about 10 bob times one-and-three quarters, so 17/1d. plus 1/9d. is 18/10d.

That's the trouble with metric-educated folk - they haven't got the quicker mental arithmetic and number skills of those trained in duodecimal

I grew up in the predecimal currency era and remember the old money well. I'm not particularly fast at mental arithmetic, though, as we all had to be, was quite used to handling it.

To deal with non-decimal currency you have to adapt but I wouldn't claim it made me any stronger at arithmetic or mathematics generally.

In world of the base ten arabic numeral system (digits 0 ... 9, place value of digits by powers of ten) decimal currency as with a decimal measurement system, is easier because it uses the same system.

Or perhaps it might be better to describe it as more efficient.

The skills required to handle non-decimal currency and measurement systems are no different to that of the decimal case. It's just that doing arithmetic in decimal currency and measures require fewer steps in the calculation. Those calculation steps are nonetheless just the same in terms of requiring knowledge of number and the ability to add, multiply etc.

I too was brought up to do duo-decimal arithmetic and am reasonable fast doing it mentally. However doing duo-decimal arithmatic on a calculator or a spreadsheet is hell.

"That's the trouble with metric-educated folk - they haven't got the quicker mental arithmetic and number skills of those trained in duodecimal"

Tony, I was educated in duodecimal and imperial. I can recall chanting my 12 times table in primary school. All our jotters had huge lists of imperial measures on the back cover (Education board must have bought a job lot in the 50's, as every obsolete imperial measure from after the '63 Act was still listed)

I am old enough to recall the 60's/70's, and remember fondly trying to pay the lower amount for sweets during the dual-marking changeover period.

From memory, the official conversions were

1d = 0.5p
2d = 1p
3d = 1.5p
4d = 1.5p
5d = 2p
6d = 2.5p
7d = 3p
8d = 3.5p
9d = 4p
10d = 4p
11d = 4.5p
12d = 5p

If my memory of the conversion chart is correct, we tried to pay £sd for anything costing 1,2,3,7,8 or 9d, and £p for anything costing 4,5,10 or 11d

Every kid in town knew this!

Anyway, if duodecimal is so great, why not 12 shillings in a pound (£), why not 12 oz in a pound (imperial lb), why not 12 fluid ounces in a pint?

I can see the advantages of a duodecimal system, but disagree that Imperial is fully duodecimal. If it was, I might be more kindly disposed toward it.

<<
Anyway, if duodecimal is so great, why not 12 shillings in a pound (£), why not 12 oz in a pound (imperial lb),
>>

Originally there were 12 [Roman] Imperial ounces (unicae) in one [Roman] Imperial pound (libra). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_weights_and_measures#Weight_2

If imperial was really base 12 it would still be awkward to use whilst pure number is decimal (or more properly called denary).

I refer here to the concept of number base as I have always known it. For example binary is base 2 so the only digits you will see are 0, 1

Octal or base 8 means everything is expressed using the digits 0 - 7, denary is base ten with the digits 0 - 9, hence duodenary or base twelve would be 0 - 9 with two extra symbols for ten and eleven (A and B say). For hexadenary, base sixteen as used in IT, the convention is 0 - 9 and the letters A - F for ten to fifteen are used.

So in duodenary (symbolised here with dd) we'd have 10dd inches to a foot, and for example someone 5 ft 8 in tall would be 58dd inches tall. You see the ease of conversion there.

Time would be interesting too. 50dd secs to a minute, 50dd minutes to an hour, 20dd hours in a day. The clock face would be a bit funny though. You'd have the hour marks as 1, 2, ... , 9, A, B, 10. Then the quarter hour marks at 3, 6, 9 would correspond to 13dd, 26dd, 39dd minutes past the hour.

There are those who say we should change to duodenary coz of the increased number of factors of twelve. But can you imagine the transitional period? Blow the minds of most people, they'd never cope.

So we're stuck with base ten like it or not. And since metric was designed to make best use of it we are lead to the obvious conclusion.

Wow!

A post by Stan that I actually enjoyed reading!!


;-)

# Tony Bennett: The Three Counties Radio interview was a doddle. #

Is there a video of the Radio Star?