NORMAL LIFE: Imperial Victory Over Brussels

At least, the European Commission has come to it's senses. The British public spoke and, for once, they listened. Could this be the start of the end of the European Union's obsession with harmonising everything?

Described as an 'ancient imperial system' (sounds quite cultural that does!), this means that Britain will be able to continue using pounds, miles and pints as units of measure. And why not? There's nothing more sophisticated - and self-differentiating - than stumping a fellow European by telling then that you are 5feet tall and then they look down at your feet and wonder if they learnt any English at all!

If anything, it is a posthumous victory for grocer, Steve Thorburn, the so-called 'Metric Martyr' who had his scales confiscated when he refused to sell his produce in grams and kilos. His defiance actually earnt him a criminal conviction. He later died of an unexpected heart attack, but his campaign has certainly succeeded.

We should learn from this for the European Commission's own Industry Commissioner admitted that 'the EU had been making itself unpopular on an issue that really didn't matter'. Hear hear! This has bought to an end more than 40 years of gridlock on this issue, separating Brits and their beloved antiquated measurement system from their continental neighbours.

If our European neighbours want to drink a pint with two centimetres of liquid missing from the top, let them! If they want everything to be over simplified and divisible into units of 100, let them, but we will still wow them with our stones, pounds, ounces, inches, yards, pints and miles for centuries to come!

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