I'm not a fan of Rugby (Ice Hockey is my sport) but was pleasantly surprised when I hear reports last week of the BBC using metric to describe player weights... unfortunately those reports seem to be in the form of complaints from our old friends the national press (Daily Mail - Metric Maulers: Why does the BBC insist on weighing the British rugby players in kilograms?, Telegraph: BBC's metric weights in rugby coverage sparks anger)!

Well, in this case my congratulations go out to the BBC for being forward thinking and brave enough to use the measurement system used by the rest of the world (and by the sport's own governing body!) and, although I think I'm only going to be disappointed, I still live in hope that when F1 Motor Racing returns to the BBC this coming season that we might hear more kilometres and less miles from the commentators to match the 100% metric information supplied on-screen by the FIA.

Several bloggers have picked up on this story too... and unsurprisingly those bloggers are of the usual anti-Europe persuasion, and it really does anoy me that the Eurosceptic brigade is still banging on about metrication being a European issue when it's clearly much wider than that. For petes sake guys, WAKE UP!!! The only significant part of the world that isn't metric is the USA and this is nothing whatsoever to do with the European Union. All of the ex-Empire countries have had the good sense to switch to metric (mainly in response to the fact that the "mother country" was doing so too) and almost all of them put us to shame. Even the Canadians who to this day still struggle because of the influence of their neighbours across the worlds longest unfortified land border... something that will contunue until the US government make a move in the right direction.

The real shame though is that these Eurosceptic bloggers continue to claim that "most Brits don't understand metric". This is complete and utter rubbish and those of you who have found your way to this site might want to take note of the following fact which, although published elsewhere on this site, is clearly not getting through.

• All British schoolchildren have been taught metric in some shape or form since the mid 1960's.
• During the 1970's and 1980's much education was exclusively metric. In fact, many never received ANY education in imperial measures whatsoever.
• Britain decided to go metric BEFORE joining the EU
• The EU rules on metrication which many believe that "force" metric onto us came AFTER we joined to ensure we completed the task we'd started (and, ironically, have probably made it harder)
• Recent research has found that metric, which many though to be of French origin, was actually proposed by and Englishman before being expanded on by Italians and formalised by the French. (Ironically, the European Single Currency that many seem to hate so much was also proposed by an Englishman... none other than Conservative MP and Prime Minister John Major!)
• The Americans DO NOT use imperial measures... many of their "customary" measures differ, some significantly, from their imperial counterparts.

Going back to my first two points... this means that everybody under the age of 40 should have no problems at all with the metric system and many between 40 and 50 should have had some form of education in metric measures as well as practical experience. This means that the majority of the British population, with a little help, should be able to use metric exclusively if a law were passed today forcing the point.

For those who claim they don't understand it... clearly this is a failing in your own education. You clearly weren't listening to your teachers because metric is easy. Imperial is hard!

For those who claim that most of Britain don't understand it... please stop making assumptions. The British public is a lot more intelligent than you seem to be believe, intelligent enough that many are starting to see through your jingoistic and xenophobic arguments.

As for the BBC... a big thankyou. Please, more metric. Please ask your reporters to use metric first in all cases, please ask your weather presenters to stop using Fahrenheit, please follow the "educate and inform" part of your charter and help those who have had the benefit of a metric education to remember what they learned at school, sometimes as long as 30 years in the past, sometimes more recently.

As for the press (particularly the Daily Mail and similar Eurosceptic rags... PLEASE stop it. I understand you have to sell your papers but please do a little research and stop giving time to these idiots. British industry is in tatters, as much because the British workforce are struggling with the international system of measurement as anything else. You can help by using metric and by not giving column cm's to these ludites.

Remember folks... metric is British. Use it with pride!

Wonko's World: BBC and ITV go metric

The Right Rant: BBC Metric Explaination (of sorts)

And a few interesting pro-metric blogs from the last week:

OSNews: The USA wonders why it is slipping into irrelivance

Page F30: The metric system isn't a "European" system

ebPublishing Inc Loyal Subscriber Site: And...About Those ‘European’ Measurements Known as The Metric System 

ecommoder: US switching to metric system?

And finally... another story of what happens when you use dual-units (from The Sun no less!)

Sunday Sun: npower confuse imperial and metric meters