[Andy McDandy]

They're (broads and fens) also on the other side of the country and receive less incoming water (save the occasional fictional 'beast from the east').

What it boils down to is the old problem of not what the argument is, but who's making it. Hippies, Booker argues, want you to do X. Therefore it's a bad idea. You might drown, but at least you died not a hippy.

See also Harriet Harman and the NSPCC on domestic violence.

[Inquisitor]

Didn't the Mail complain that house cats were eating all the birds some years ago? Is the message now to screw the birds and other wildlife? Or was that a simple cat hating phase?

[Messianic Trees]

How the floods prove the cynical campaign to force us to abandon feet and inches still hasn't worked

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... orked.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bluebellnutter]

Wait, what? Tell me this came out of a Daily Mail Headline Generator.

[Andy McDandy]

I remember an old issue of Viz had a character called Cockney Wanker doing 'the Ignorance', a parody of the cabbies' test 'the knowledge', in which he had to get from an innocuous statement such as 'lovely weather for this time of year' to 'hanging's too good for them, I'll pull the lever myself!' as quickly as possible. This article is about the same. From a reporter measuring something in metres on TV, we're treated to barmy Brussels bureaucrats, Tony Benn, Grocer Heath, metric martyrs (remember them?), feet and inches, pounds and ounces, and even NASA landing man on the moon (BTW the Americans may use imperial measurements in daily life, but be assured that for technical stuff like rockets it's metric). All to make a point about...not much really. His entire defence of the imperial system is that it 'feels more comfortable' or something. Then there's a good selection of old puffins in the comments saying that they still buy their petrol by the gallon. Where from, I wonder?

[youngian]

Count Arthur Strong writes

I am 68 and every time I hear something measured in metric I have to do some mental arithmetic to convert it to imperial so that I know what the hell they are talking about.

[Bones McCoy]

Count Arthur Strong writes

I am 68 and every time I hear something measured in metric I have to do some mental arithmetic to convert it to imperial so that I know what the hell they are talking about.

1. So much for "Education was grate before trendies and commies ruined it"..
2. Metric simply means a system of measurement. This idiot means "The internetional system of units (SI).
3. In 1668 the English cleric and philosopher John Wilkins proposed in an essay a decimal-based unit of length, the universal measure or standard. - Bloody forrins eh!

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I had to look Count Arthur Strong up, apparently he's not a real person, so I'm not sure how relevant his testimony is.

[The Red Arrow]

If I might be permitted, M'lud? The Count Arthur Strong reference would be as relevant as posting something on behalf of Ebinezer Scrooge or Alf Garnet. I believe youngian was attempting (somewhat successfully from my standpoint) to portray the thoughts of the reprehensible columnist in question as somewhat lacking both in morality and modernity.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I don't believe it's quite the same thing.
I've read Dickens, never heard of Arthur Strong. I'm sure I'm not alone. I still don't know who or what he was/is.

It's a bit - well I leave the adjective to readers - to continually assume that everyone shares our cultural references, is it not? A brief explanation (or even expressing things ourselves in our own words) is, surely, not too onerous a task?

[Abernathy]

Count Arthur Strong :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Art ... TV_series)

Painfully unfunny comic creation of someone called Steve Delaney.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Audience in the dozens?

It's always a mistake to believe that other people share your taste in comedy.
Or get the same messages from it.

After all, there's a world of real cultural reference out there...

[Abernathy]

I've seen it. Didn't care for it. Some people laugh at it though, apparently.

[Killer Whale]

Not just television. Has featured in several '6:30pm comedy slot' series on that intellectual Radio 4. And has previously been discussed at some length on this very forum.

[Andy McDandy]

You know those people we mock for going 'Who?' or 'Never heard of them' in the comments on obit pieces in the Mail, particularly when the person in question isn't a PLU?

Getting a bit close to that here.