It’s hard to get Aussies to accept change. Every house I have ever been to in Australia has the same screen door. The exact same forest-green, aluminum-framed, two-panel screen door. If you introduced a new screen door, say a blue one, Aussies wouldn’t know what to make of it. “Do we need to paint the house then?”
But once change has been rammed down their throats Aussies embrace it whole-heartedly. Can’t get them to stop. Meth didn’t catch on here for years and now you’d think Aussies invented it. There’s no mix-and-match allowed either, you can’t just take part of a new trend and adapt it, no just capturing the jist of it. There are no Australian Impressionists. Australians always follow the directions and if the directions say “bake 10-12 minutes” Australians will suspect the writer of making it up.
And so it is with the metric system introduced here in the 1970’s, not long after they finally switched over to dollars and cents from shells and rum. Metric is a good system for most things, it’s based on tens so there are no fractions. But like most things, there are times when something else will do better. Horsepower does not translate well into metric, there are no decimal-based farm animals, but that’s too bad because Australia went metric and metric it shall be, damn it. Cars here are advertised with the engine’s power rated in KILOWATTS for cripe sake. I have a four cylinder diesel truck and I’m guessing it has about 150-200 horsepower with the turbo running – literally that it could pull as much weight as 150 horses. Instead I have to pretend I run a power station and try and figure out how much 112Kw is. Would my truck be able to light Rockefeller Centre at New Year’s? Could it power a giant magnet that would suck satellites in from orbit? How many grilled cheese sandwiches could I make in a pinch?
I’m waiting to see what a metric screen door looks like.
But once change has been rammed down their throats Aussies embrace it whole-heartedly. Can’t get them to stop. Meth didn’t catch on here for years and now you’d think Aussies invented it. There’s no mix-and-match allowed either, you can’t just take part of a new trend and adapt it, no just capturing the jist of it. There are no Australian Impressionists. Australians always follow the directions and if the directions say “bake 10-12 minutes” Australians will suspect the writer of making it up.
And so it is with the metric system introduced here in the 1970’s, not long after they finally switched over to dollars and cents from shells and rum. Metric is a good system for most things, it’s based on tens so there are no fractions. But like most things, there are times when something else will do better. Horsepower does not translate well into metric, there are no decimal-based farm animals, but that’s too bad because Australia went metric and metric it shall be, damn it. Cars here are advertised with the engine’s power rated in KILOWATTS for cripe sake. I have a four cylinder diesel truck and I’m guessing it has about 150-200 horsepower with the turbo running – literally that it could pull as much weight as 150 horses. Instead I have to pretend I run a power station and try and figure out how much 112Kw is. Would my truck be able to light Rockefeller Centre at New Year’s? Could it power a giant magnet that would suck satellites in from orbit? How many grilled cheese sandwiches could I make in a pinch?
I’m waiting to see what a metric screen door looks like.
3 comments:
americans are far more stubborn than aussies. we're still fighting the metric system.
The metric system is a myth. Much like this island named "Australia" where kangaroos roam free and all screen doors are green.
Hogwash!
too bad you couldn't prove Noah smoked ganja
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