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I’ve been quite entertained today by the fuss of the twother, or schooner. It’s on a fair few blogs and got a mention on the telly news. I cannot tell you whether it will take off, and frankly don’t much care. It would I suspect depend on whether anyone actually wants to buy two thirds of a pint. In my view anyone that drinks less than a pint in a UK pub under current weights and measures law is what is known as a “poof”. That’s not a homophobic statement as I’ve nothing against consenting adults doing what they like, and as contrary to the Daily Mail perspective on gay rights, giving all people in society the same rights isn’t “sticking homosexuality down our throats”, it’s just plain “fair”. No I use “poof” in its modern 21st century meaning. Sure the word “gay” used to mean happy, it also used to mean homosexual. Today it means “naff”. As in “like your mobile phone is like totally gay”. Frankly if you drink halves, thirds or two thirds you are in my view “a right poof”. Yes that includes you; there are no exceptions other than ladies. Ladies are allowed to drink less than a pint if they so wish. If you object then all I can say is that I didn’t make the rules. Rules is rules, and in your own home you can drink what you like in whatever measure you like because you are not in public showing everyone what a right poof you are.

I have once seen someone drink a measure that is as near as dammit to a 2/3 of a pint measure. Only the once. In Europe you can sell 1/3 of a litre and many bars offer that measure. The only person I have ever seen take it up was a four foot tall Japanese lady that weighed about 6 stone/ 38kg / 84 pounds wet through. It was in the Weisses Bräuhaus, and she didn’t know whether she liked beer and wanted to try the smallest one on offer. After her first small wheat beer she sank 4 more full sized ones before asking me to marry her. Upon telling her I was attached she proposed to my friend.

Having said all that I do have a strong opinion regarding weights and measures. As a customer I want things like price and quantity to be clear and unambiguous and would be more than happy to see all imperial weights and measures abolished including the great British pint. I have never understood why I was sent to school to learn stuff and was taught the metric system, yet live in a country that is partly metric and partly imperial. One or the other please, and as the rest of Europe use metric it makes sense in a single market to follow suit.

If you think you would get less beer if you bought half a litre, do the following experiment. Nick a pint pot from a pub. Go on, just do it. Just this once. Buy either a 500ml bottle or can of any beer of choice and pour it into the pint pot. You will notice you actually have more beer in the pint pot than a usual 568ml pint that you would buy in a pub. That’s because pubs rip you off with short measures and the froth is considered part of the pint. A continental half litre in a lined glass is actually more beer than a UK pub pint. Our European cousins with their metric lined glasses are getting what they paid for and we are getting stung.

If that hasn’t convinced you ask yourself this. Why did we learn kilometres at school to live in a world where motorway signs denote miles? Why do I buy petrol by the litre but milk by the pint? It’s just plain weird and pointless. There is no point to the hangover of the old imperial system. Like the monarchy, once all the old timers have all died off and the rest of us wonder why they had such strange attachments we’ll no doubt get shut.




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