Dear LPG,

Today I find that my thoughts are taking me back to my school days where maths was the subject which drew my interest.  I have to marvel at the way we all learned using imperial units but managed to master the metric system when it was inflicted on us in the mid-1960s. 

It took some a long time, and others less time to really understand, but I still find myself measuring certain things using the old imperial values.  I have many friends who, if asked, would approximate the length of their garden with a figure which was followed by the word ‘yards’ rather than metres, but there is only one measurement on our minds as Covid-19 continues to dominate our lives. I offer this poem on the subject

MEASUREMENTS

Sixty seconds in a minute, 

Sixty minutes in an hour,

Twenty-four hours in a day.

London is ahead of New York,

But behind Sydney.

Hot and cold is different

I grew up with Fahrenheit.

But now temperature is Celsius.

Americans find it strange.

The rest of us accept

WHO’s warning about 37.6.

Feet and inches – an early

School lesson. Yards and miles

Less easy to remember.

They remain with us,

Though centimetres, metres, kilometres

Have become common elsewhere.

Grams, litres replaced

Pounds, ounces and pints.

Still think ‘pint of milk, pint of beer’.

Remember the line on the wall

Drawn each year to measure growth?

But “Don’t you draw on the wall.”

My neck has gone from 14 1/2 to 16

In stages as years passed.

Her chest was thirty-four

Complicated by the cup size.

I could never buy that garment.

Now there is a pandemic

The key measurement is universal.

Two metres, no closer

Stay apart, no crowds, no cafes, no pubs.

Avoid transmission, avoid deaths.

Foster Murphy.