BTW, the first person to propose a truely metric system was John Wilkins (a Briton), Maxwell had the foresight to define electrical units so that the electrical unit of power, the watt, was the same as teh mechanical unit of power, the prototype kilogram was “Made in England” and the newton, farad, watt, kelvin, gray and joule wer all named after British scientists.

There were no dual signs, no waiting until the majority of the population was educated in metric. Now 40 years later, very few if any can remember the old signs or what was on them.

It just makes the UK look like it run by incompetent fools constantly tripping over each other.

No wonder jobs continue to leave the UK and countries like Brazil have passed the UK by and in the future others will do the same. But I guess England’s loss is someone Else’s gain.

There is also on the job training. Older citizens who work for companies that have metricated would have to be trained on the job to function in metric, if not then they can be of no use to the company.

When you factor this in, the percentage goes much higher. I’m sure though that those who claim not to know metric, whether they were educated in it or not, do so of their own choosing. The idea that changes should not take place until a sufficient number of citizens has been educated in metric is just a stall tactic to keep metrication from being completed.

The metric haters may think they are fighting for the culture but what they are doing is assuring that good paying jobs for the middle and lower classes go to nearby foreign countries that use the metric system and where the people have both metricated and maintained their historical culture. Why England can’t do the same shows England can’t adapt and is thus inferior to those that have and continue to do so.

For as long as tobacco remains a legal substance that is considered safe enough to tax and sell for adult consumption, it is up to adult individuals whether or not they wish to expose themselves to it. If an adult individual is considered capable of choosing to smoke a cigarette, cigar, pipe or hookah directly, that same individual is equally capable of choosing to breathe the smoke from someone else’s cigarette, cigar, pipe or hookah in a confined space; if they didn’t want to do so, they wouldn’t enter that confined space in the first place. The common complaint that non-smokers were ever “forced” to breathe others’ smoke in private establishments is a logical fallacy.

As a non-smoker, I’m not particularly concerned about the rights or wrongs of smoking itself or whether or not society would be better off without it. My concern is purely limited to the infringement of adult choice to consent to the risks of a legal consumer product.

Smoking is harmful to people who do it and, as most of them will readily admit, does nothing positive for them except satisfy an addiction. This applies to all smokers and there is no way to smoke in moderation without risking health.

So why not let them do it provided they only harm themselves? Well what about the consequences for the rest of us when they place a demand on the NHS!

Comparing smoking with loud music and the other things mentioned is too shallow a way of looking at it. Yes we do have to tolerate other people’s taste and we cannot eliminate risk in our daily lives. But we should try to eleminate unnecessary risk and there is no cultural necessity for smoking.

The ban in pubs is really just part of a wider campaign to get rid of the habit altogether. The question is do you agree this would be better for society or don’t you?

In any event, even supposing no migration had taken place, the majority would still have been metric-educated.