For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
#1623705
Went outside the other day and wondered if I stepped onto the return flight from Australia - Hot, hazy days, no rain in sight, brown grass and even a Eucalyptus in the back garden (or yard). House gave it away (over 400 years old!).

Haven't had to move the grass in a couple of weeks; sheep are doing OK; First cut of hay was good so looking OK so far... Of course, we are a small holding - would be very worried with anything on a commercial scale - and am worried retail prices are going to soar...
#1623900
Trent772 wrote:An allotment is traditionally measured in rods (perches or poles), an old measurement dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. 10 poles is the accepted size of an allotment, the equivalent of 250 square metres or about the size of a doubles tennis court.

Rood is an English unit of area, equal to one quarter of an acre or 10,890 square feet (1,012 m2). A rectangle that is one furlong (i.e. 10 chains, or 40 rods) in length and one rod in width is one rood in area, as is any space comprising 40 perches (a perch being one square rod).

A link is exactly ​66⁄100 of a foot, or exactly 7.92 inches or 20.1168 cm. The unit is based on Gunter's chain, a metal chain 66 feet long with 100 links, that was formerly used in land surveying.

You really are moving to the metric system inch by inch! Will Brexit bring back the shillings and guinneas too? :D
#1623921
kanga wrote:
akg1486 wrote:..
.. Will Brexit bring back the shillings and guinneas too? :D


readily exchangeable for riksdaler, of course :)

Absolutely. Just remember that 1 riksdaler specie = ​2 2⁄3 riksdaler banco = 4 riksdaler riksgälds with the value represented by 25.5 g pure silver. At least in 1834. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_riksdaler)

My first visit to the UK was in 1981, so I've never had to deal with the old money. And I haven't been in any place with remotely such a complicated system. But it baffled me in the early 2000s that I had to buy milk in quarts but orange juice in liters at Tesco. (I'm fine with beer in pints: it's such a quaint measure.)

Of course, I refill oil in the Lycoming engine in US quarts and AVGAS in liters. And I measure altitude in feet, visibility in meters and distances in nautical miles. An altitude of, say, 6000 feet makes perfect sense when flying but doesn't mean anything when it comes to a ski resort. There, 1800 meters makes sense but doesn't in the cockpit.
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By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1623930
I always found it funny how my fellow Aero Eng students in Manchester in the 90s were perfectly happy talking about m, kg, N, Pa etc. in lectures but the second we were talking about the size of a room or the weight (sic) of a bag, it was feet and pounds. :)
The weirdest ones were the blob and slug :lol: somewhat sad they are no longer used!
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1623983
akg1486 wrote:that I had to buy milk in quarts


It's only the Americans who sell milk in quarts. We sell it here in multiples of pints - British pints.

akg1486 wrote:I'm fine with beer in pints


Watch when you go to the US, they short change you there! ;-)

akg1486 wrote:Of course, I refill oil in the Lycoming engine in US quarts


Well...I think it's changed recently but Aeroshell used to sell the 15W50 in quarts, and the W80 and W100 in litres...
#1623990
Paul_Sengupta wrote:
akg1486 wrote:I'm fine with beer in pints


Watch when you go to the US, they short change you there! ;-)

I have two kinds of pint glasses with the same shape at home: from Guinness (bought in Dublin) and from Brooklyn Breweries (bought in NY). I use them as a reminder which is most: a UK or US gallon.
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By Genghis the Engineer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1623992
Morten wrote:I always found it funny how my fellow Aero Eng students in Manchester in the 90s were perfectly happy talking about m, kg, N, Pa etc. in lectures but the second we were talking about the size of a room or the weight (sic) of a bag, it was feet and pounds. :)
The weirdest ones were the blob and slug :lol: somewhat sad they are no longer used!

I'm familiar with the Slug, even if it does confuse the feck out of me every time I use it. But the Blob ???

G
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By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1623998
(funny how this sticks in my memory, but if i remember correctly...) the blob is to the inch what the slug is to the foot.
So I guess there are 12 blobs to the slug? But probably nothing that logical. I don't remember what the slug (or blob) actually measured. I could google, but I might learn that my memory is all wrong and that would ruin one of my favourite stories...
Last edited by Morten on Wed Jul 11, 2018 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.