Those of you in the US may or may not be aware of the tensions caused in the UK by two decades of potential European Standardisation that are always being imposed upon us from Brussels. We lost our good old imperial system (yes we guys also bought our petrol in Gallons until just over a year ago). Now we are well confused. Our signs (and our thoughts) remain in miles, we buy petrol in Litres, but measure our fuel consumption in Miles per Gallon and measure our hill heights in Meters. There have been numerous and farcical attempts at various absurdities including standardising (or even abolishing) the British Sausage, re-defining Carrots as Fruit (instead of Veg), there was even talk last year of abolishing the good old British 13Amp three pin plug in favour of the European 5 amp two pin variety which was superseded in the UK in the early fifties. Well on top of it all, we poor old Brits had to cope with having all our phone codes changed last month. In order to cope with the rising number of phone numbers,( direct dial phone lines, fax machines, mobiles etc.), some bright spark came up with the idea of adding a '1' after the initial zero on all numbers. This gives us potentially 9,999,999,999 numbers in a country with a population of around 45,000,000. Well the 'last straw' has to be the following:........'HEIGHT DAY' Hill heights starting 1 will start 18 Map users are reminded that June 16th 1995 is National Height Day, when the Ordnance Survey will insert an "8" after the first digit of the height of most British hills. For example, Ben Nevis, currently 1344m, will become 18344m, and Lochnagar, currently 1155m, will become 18155m. Three-figure heights will be similarly affected - such that Ben Cleuch will change from 721m to 7821m. But two-figure and single- figure heights (mainly confined to the Albion shires) will stay unchanged. Thus Great Pickle Tor in Shropshire will remain at 5m. Due to the amount of usage they receive, five hills will have completely new heights altogether: Ben Lawers switching from 1214m to 18962m, Ben Lomond from 974 to 58619, The Cobbler from 884 to 98104, Cairn Gorm 1245 to 78674, and Nottingham 0602 to 0115. Anyone still using the old heights after June 16th will be able to exchange their maps, cost-free, for nice new updated editions.* These new heights will bring Britain into line with the EU, where Alpine peaks such as Mont Blanc have had five-figure heights for many years. Further to these changes, the Ordnance Survey intends to insert an extra "8" into the price of all Ordnance Survey maps, such that the current Landranger sheets costing 4.50 will increase to 48.50. This should, however, prove to be the last price rise until later in 1995. * This offer only applies until 12:07am on June 16th. Thereafter updated maps will have to be paid for full price.
From the Internet. Original © not known. This version ©2000 OFC