- I am asked to advise on a disease known as 'metrication' which appears to be seriously weakening an important aspect of British culture.
It can best be compared to a virulent form of cancer, having first been introduced by Harold Wilson's 1963 promise to E.U. leaders to decimalise British currency, and it advanced significantly when major retail outlets complied with a European diktat to label most of their goods in metric units only. A 1994 Regulation, coming into effect in 2000, making it a crime to sell loose goods in pounds and ounces, dealt the body a further blow although there has been determined resistance. I note that the disease is likely to advance rapidly within 5 years when the Government hopes that resistance to it will have weakened, enabling British units to be dismantled from British road signs.
I am afraid that existing remedies, such as writing polite letters to Government Ministers, petitions, exasperated letters to the press etc. are mostly proving ineffective. If the High Court case of the 5 'metric martyrs' in November is won, it will breathe new life into the patient.
If it is lost, I recommend life support techniques for those still selling in pounds and ounces. They will need a very effective 'shot in the arm' to survive.
As for metric distance signs on roads and footpaths, my treatment recommendation is _surgery_. Metric distance signs must be promptly dealt with wherever found - either removed or suitably obliterated. They must not be allowed to fester whilst those who erected of them offer vague promises of 'looking into the matter'.
A Doctor
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