As Sky starts our roof today, one of the best things about our new house is that it is being built totally using feet and inches without a single millimetre anywhere in sight.
When I inadvertently said to Sky that I needed 3.2 metres between the kitchen walls to accommodate a number of 600mm kitchen units he immediately responded to ask: “Would 127 inches be okay?”
Being ‘of a certain age’ I am, and always have been, far more comfortable using imperial measures and can guess an inch with great accuracy.
In the UK there was always a tension around the conflicting systems and ridiculous inconsistency. Go into a timber merchant and ask for ‘two by one’ and universally it will refer to two inch by one inch pine that is planed with a square edge (PSE). How stupid then that if you request some two by one you’ll be asked how many metres do you want?
