You could say I'm late for last week's entry... or perhaps early for this week's, so I'm going to just combine the two since, with the possible exception of the crisis in the high streets and the middle east the news has been relatively quiet anyway. I have still been out and about though and have a few observations.

It really does make you wonder sometimes. Is Britain moving forward or backward? I know, for instance, of one width-limit sign near where I live which used to be dual-unit but has been plated over as imperial-only; was this because it was in a rural area and somebody complained that metric units weren't fitting or was it because somebody said it might not be legal and so the local council decided better to be safe than sorry? Ironically, about 3-4 km north of this sign local authorities have deemed it necessary to install a metric height warning sign alongside an imperial one on a turning that heads towards a low railway bridge (if you're in Northamptonshire, the road in question is the A43 from Geddington to Stanion).

In all fairness, Northamptonshire County Council seem to be getting the idea where it comes to metric signs, it's just unfortunate that neighbouring authorities don't seem to be as eager to do the right thing. The level of frustration at the sign just across the Cambridgeshire border that still uses the words "tons" and "tonnes" on the same sign continues to grow as does the lack of metric height warnings on the main roads around Peterborough and the weight limits in residential areas that also still say "tons" and not "tonnes" (how hard would it be to put a sticker over the "ons"?). Milton Keynes also seems quite bad in this respect; as a "new" town (ok, so it's now 41 years old) and seemingly designed using a metric grid it's a shame that the height warnings on the main roads there also remain imperial-only!

The real problem though is the fact that rules regarding metric signage is still confusing - it's illegal in many respects, legal if accompanied by imperial in others and, in the case of weight limits, supposedly mandatory! Add to this the requirement on Welsh signs to show both English and Welsh equivalents for the words "yards"  and "miles" ("llath" and "flitir" - although I've also seen "militir" and would appreciate it if somebody could tell me what that means!), the fact that "m" is miles on some signs and "metres" on others and you have a real mish-mash! The saving grace is that the Department for Transport is planning a public consultation on road signs which will hopefully herald a re-write of the laws which means that we might just be able to persuade the authorities to fix many of these mix-ups!

It would be useful if somebody could sort out the motor industry too though... the fact that my Vauxhall, built in Germany with a digital odometer, can't display km instead of miles is a constant annoyance and the fact that many cars sold in Britain have trip computers that won't work in metric is just plain criminal (the Jeep Grand Cherokee that I drove around Florida for 2 weeks earlier this month quite happily switched to metric for me showing temperatures in Celsius, distances in km and fuel consumption in L/100km).

We can but hope... it's now only 1 year until the next round of changes in the EU Weights and Measures directive come into effect. Although the requirement to remove imperial completely has gone there are still many changes and hopefully we'll start to see more metric in the coming year as companies change their products and advertising to fall in line in readiness.

Finally... I just came across a new forum site - metric-versus-imperial.com. At first sight it looks as if it might be good place to debate the issues and I'll be taking a good look at it in the next few days and will probably sign up!

My next blog, hopefully this coming Friday, will be a brief round-up of the year gone by. 

A happy - and hopefully metric - new year to you all!