Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 27, 2012

And now the EU “bureaucrats in Brussels” are introducing metric colors – kiloblue, decagreen, centiyellow, hectoblack, etc. Only officially sanctioned metric color hues and shades will be acceptable in EU commerce. Unbelievable.

Where I live in Ontario Canada, school kids are required to have at least two pairs of shoes. One pair is for outdoors, the other for indoors (stays at school). At $2.45/mm that works out to about $62 a pair.

To answer the question posed in the strip, No.

Richard S. Russell: I had fun living in Canada during metrication and its accompanying resistance to any change. Groceries were hard to tell quickly whether it was an Imperial or US quart, so I suggested they simply compromise and set it between the two. Most agreed this would be a good thing. Then I closed the trap: “Then we could call it a litre”, sputtering ensued. .Ooten Aboot: Are you Scottish living in Canada? At least in British Columbia, it is much closer to oat an aboat.

“Two farthings = One Ha’Penny. Two Ha’Pennies = 1 Penny. Three Pennies = 1 Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.”—N. Gaiman & T. Pratchett, “Good Omens”

@AshburnStadiumThey did, in 1793. Everyone flat refused it. The day was made of 10 hours, each made of 100 minutes, each made of 100 seconds. You can still see a few clocks made with that system in a few museums. The system was abandonned a year and a half later. People wanted a new weight and size measurement that would harmonise all the different systems in France (each big city had its own system so a pound in Calais was not the same weight as a pound in Toulouse) but noone except the scientists wanted to change their time values.

Sounds pretty cynical. And as it’s been said, a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.