Judging by tonight's episode of Michael Palin's travelogue on the Sahara Desert, the pro-metric lobby are lying if they claim that Mali is fully metric country.

During his visit to Timbuktu (Tombouctou in French), in western Mali, Michael Palin encountered some natives who gladly shinned up a tree and got some dates down for him. Getting back to earth, one native explained, in his pidgin French, that he had just been 'soixante pieds' (60 feet) up a date palm to get Michael Palin some dates. Michael Palin added, to camera: "He's just told me that he has climbed 60 feet up this date palm to fetch me some dates".

Earlier in the programme [BBC, 7pm, 27 Oct 2002], Palin was seen buying sugar in the market. The seller was using a dry measure which looked suspiciously close to a pound/16-20 fluid ounces - a long way from 1 kilo anyway - and there were no prices per kilo in sight.


[reported by Philip Ivey-Ray]

"The pro-metric lobby lying"?

Surely not!

I saw that, and I am pretty sure that the bloke that went up that tree said "vingt metres" (20 metres), which Palin immediately translated into 60 foot. Maybe I am wrong, but I am not too sure.

The measure might have been an arbitrary container that the trader used. Wnen I was in Mali (December 1980/ January 1981), I remember buying some peanut butter in the local market. The woman who ran the stall showed me the scoop that she used (no trading standards officers), we agreed that the price would settle around the size of that scoop and she told me that the proce would be deux cent [Central African] francs per scoop. A young lad nearby who spoke English translated that as being "Three hundred francs". I told him to ****** off.

Prior ot independence, Mali was a French colony and used the metric system in colonial days. Prior to that they might have used Arabic measures, but they certainly did not use English measures in any form.

The foot is an international unit of measure.

The foot might be used in many countries, but not all countries are agreed as to how big a foot should be. In pre-metric days South Africa had the English foot and the Cape [or Rheinish] foot. The conversion was 1 Cape foot = 1.033 English Feet. The Cape foot was teh legal unit of measure of land in all the provinces except Natal.

When Johannnesburg was being laid out in 1886 using a grid pattern, the job of surveying the city was given to two contractors - one to survey the land North of Bree Street and one to survey the land South of Bree Street. The surveyor who surveyed the Southern part did not realise that he should have been using Cape Feet. The result was a series of staggered junctions as one progressed along Bree Stree from West ot East. In the case of Rissik Street the dogleg is about 3 metres (or one lane of traffic), but further down Bree Street (which is about 2 km long), the dogleg is 60m.

Moral of the story - standardise your units before passing them on to strangers.

The English foot has been standardised for a VERY long time. Moreover and somewhat to the point: The foot isn't an English unit, therefore they very well may use it is Mali regardless of whether they were an English colony or not.

Barry

Have you ever been to Mali (or anywhere in Africa)? I have been there and it did not take long to see the French influence. SOme of the major roads were in very good condition (I suspected that the French financed their maintenance as a "gift" and in return, should a [French] army ever have to move travel along those roads quickly, they could. The administrative regions in Mali were called "Departments" (I had to get my passport stamped in each department). The language in common use was French. The only British influence that I saw was the number of Land Rovers.

It is highly unlikely that the English foot was in use in Mali.

I might add that in contrast, I also visited Ghana on the same trip and there I was offfered plastic bags with the Charles-Diana wedding motive on them, but then Ghana was a British, not Frech colony.

Barry, if you had ever been to Mali. you would not have made such a stupid comment.

Exactly.

I haven't been to Mali.

However in December I will be able to tell you what units the Bajans (actually) use.

(I use "actually" because "actually" and "officially" are hardly ever the same with these things)

Bryan Parry wrote: "The foot isn't an English unit, therefore they very well may use it in Mali regardless of whether they were an English colony or not."

Mr Parry, if Mali ever used the foot as a unit of measurement, it will certainly not have been the English foot you're talking about. In the past, the lenght of the "foot" around the world fluctuated between 23 cm and 35 cm. So the difference is bigger than the difference between the metre and the yard !

Almost all the feet in history have been 11-13 inches. And my name isn't 'Barry', thanks.

Incidentally, the French foot is about 12.2 inches..

Anyone going to Longleat can verify this. They have a barometer that was purchased from France during the Revolution. When I inspected it (without touching of course), it appeared to be in working order, but hte pressure was shown as 29" of mercury which was rather low for a summer's day. I deduced that this was partly due to the altitude, but mainly due to the fact that I was looking at pre-metric French inches.

BTW - the French colonised Mali long after the Revolution, so they never had a chance to export their non-metric measures to Mali.