The Metric System You Say???

Traveling in the UK has reminded me that the USA isn't the only country still clinging to the old "Imperial" system of measurements.

Here in the UK, there has been some conversion, but it's a real mish-mash of the two systems. Some examples:

Road distances and signs are in miles. The speedometer in the car is in miles, although the digital display has a metric option. Gas (er... petrol) is sold by the litre. Most liquids (beer, milk, etc) are sold by the pint - imagine, a full pint beer can! I did find a bottle of chocolate milk that was a 1 litre bottle and the Imperial system wasn't even mentioned. I think temperatures are in Celsius, although I'm not sure about that.

Anyhow, it's interesting. But then, the UK just switched to decimal currency not all that long ago.

Speaking of currency, this is another country (like Canada) that could well afford to discard some of the smaller coins, like the 1 and 2 pence coins. Interestingly, the 1-pence coin is one of the larger coins and I'm forever thinking it's a pound coin or something important, only to realize (er... realise) that it's nearly worthless to buy anything with.