Fire Over England.

by Englishman 31 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Abaddon

  As has been commented, the UK converted to the metric system (sort of) over a twenty year period. Thus although the weather forecast is now in Celsius, they still mention the Farenheit temperature, and a lot of things (like Simon said about buying petrol by the liter and measuring economy in mpg) are 'mixed. I was lucky, going through school during the conversion so I know that there are 4.55 litres in a gallon (that's an Imperial Gallon, the US gallon is different), 1.61km in a mile, 2.2 pounds in a kilo, although Cesius to Farenhiet convertion is beyond mental arithmatic for me (Tf = ((9/5)*Tc)+32 or Tc = (5/9)*(Tf-32), I mean, come on) and I just know that 0=32/28=82/100=212

  The Euro is something the UK has not adopted, and the way most people carry on it sounds as though adopting the Europe will have made the defeat of Napoleon and all intervening European history pointless: living in Holland as I do now, it's just silly, as any fool can tell you that the British pound will be dead well within fifty years.

  The pound is an ordinary decimal currency, 100 pence in a pound. Pounds, shillings and 'old' pence were the pre-decimalisation currency which was used prior to 1970. In this there were 20 shillings to a pound, each shilling consisting of 12 'old' pence, thus 240 'old' pence to a pound. If you see an old film where they say things like "That'll be 3 and 6 guvner, stone the crows and mind your plates of meat on them pears, gawd bless us every one", they mean 3 shillings and 6 pence, or 42 'old' pence, which is 17.5 'new' pence.

  There were coins like the Farthing (1/4 'old' pence), the Groat (4 'old' pence' (okay, that was phased out in the 19th C), the Florin (2 shillings), the Crown (5 shillings), and a unit of currency called the Guinea (21 shillings or 105 new pence), which for reasons I cannot be bothered looking up is used to this day when selling premium horses. The main reason for the decline of Britain from the late 60's onward is that having such a complicated currency exercised brains more, and with the advent of decimalisation there was a 'dumbing down'.

  I think that tyres use an international system that is a weird blend of metric and imperial.

  Southern Europe has temperatures in the 90's F every summer, and parts get even higher. However, the lower levels of relative humidity make it a lot more bareable than many parts of the South and East of the USA. In the past twenty years AirCo has gone from unusual to not uncommon in public places, but is still quite unusual in family homes. However, if you live in a house that is built in traditional styles, you don;t NEED AirCo; last week I went from 95 F+ heat into 65-70 F 'cool' by walking from outside into old houses with thick stone walls - this wouldn't work quite as well in a humid climate, but round the Med it's fine and dandy and is how people have lived for thousands of years without electricity bills.

  Due to England considering 70 F to be a good summers day, and 80 F to be excellent, AirCo is very uncommon in English homes, although thankfully many modern public buildings have it now.
• 

  kitties_and_horses_oh_my!

  I'm trying to feel empathetic as the weather has recently cooled down to a nice 98 F from recent temps of 110 here in eastern Washington. But then again, it is a "dry heat"... (Me panting on my early morning 3 mile run or my two second walk into the house from the car at 2 p.m.)
• 

  RAYZORBLADE

  Oddly enough, we are having probably one of the most temperate summers that I can remember.

  The hottest days, were a few in late June, and one or two in July. That was all.

  Seems like we're having weather more closely related to the Pacific coast (Canada). It's very damp, humid and clammy.

  The average temperature it seems lately: 24C to 27C

  Cooler than what I am used to here for summer.
• 

  SYN

  Simon, that all sounds very confusing. Thank Ghod we use only the Metric system down here in Darkest Africa I would find all that quarts, gallons and inches stuff pretty confusing.

  About the only thing we measure in inches down here is willies , although it does sound more impressive if you say "I'm 18 centimeters"!!!!
• 

  funkyderek

  Yesterday was the hottest day in Ireland since 1995, a massive 29 degrees Celsius (that's a phenomenal 84 in old money). If it hits 30, people will probably start dying of heatstroke!
• 

  Stephanus

  what's interesting, is that the UK is on a similar latitude to Moscow. Now, we're normally considerably warmer than Moscow on account of the Gulf Stream. Pay attention there, please, as I will be asking questions about what exactly the Gulf Stream is!

  I recently read somewhere that there is new research that suggests that England owes its mild climate not so much to the Gulf Stream as to some other weather system, IIRC originating from Europe (or somewhere!). Can't remember the details; was some months ago...
• 

  AlanF

  Stephanus said:

  : I recently read somewhere that there is new research that suggests that England owes its mild climate not so much to the Gulf Stream as to some other weather system, IIRC originating from Europe (or somewhere!).

  Actually there's an ocean current much larger than the Gulf Stream that originates near the Caribbean in the low-latitude Atlantic and dumps most of its heat by the time it reaches the latitude of Iceland well north of Scotland. When the now-cold water sinks, it flows back to its source along the bottom. Current ideas on climate are that if this current shuts down for whatever reason, all of Europe from Spain northward cools drastically and you get virtually Arctic conditions in the UK. Let it go on long enough and you get an ice age. At the end of the last ice age, when North American glaciers were melting rapidly, enough fresh water got dumped into the North Atlantic to shut down this "conveyor belt" of heat and cause a 1000-year period of cold weather called the "Younger Dryas" beginning about 11,500 years ago. Scary thing is that this cold weather seems to have come on in just twenty years, which makes some climatologists wary of what global warming could do if Greenland's ice cap melted quickly.

  AlanF
• 

  Valis

  Englishman...look matey come on down to Texas....it was 105 yesterday....At 6PM...I'll trade you any day....Give me regards to that olde fruit Trucker for me too please.

  Sincerely,

  District Overbeer
• 

  ninecharger

  Whatever would we do in the New System of things?????

  Cubits, shekels, denarii (sorrry - that's an evil Roman one...)

  And as for heat... everyone will follow the average of the Pwomssed Wand. If it ain't hot by Abraham's standard, you is freezin' - Light de fire!!

  Don't like the Californian fashion for turning up the air conditioning so your guests have to huddle round the artificial log gas fire. But maybe depends who you are huddlin' with.

  Alan_f , I read a disturbing report recently that over 50 odd MILLION (or was it billion?) cubic km of ice cap had melted in Greenland in a period of only a couple of years. (New Scientist or Scientific American).

  In the short term they implied this could mean Arctic winters for western Europe as the gulf stream shut down, but as the greater water volume of the sea absorbs more heat, methane held frozen on the seabeds will vaporise, leading to the sort of devastating rises in temperature seen at the end of the Cretaceous (???)

  How lucky we are to live in the time of the end. Santa Claus is about to drop down our chimneys with a Big Bag of Armageddon to put everything right.

  9
• 

  Simon

  Well, the record was broken ! 100F in the UK !!

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3138865.stm

  ... and it's now raining again in Manchester

  I pity anyone stuck in the complete armpit of a place that Heathrow is in those temperatures. There is little or no air-con and is has always been stuffy and unpleasant whenever I've been there.