Numbers to count on

Among well-meaning associations that never quite made the breakthrough they deserved were the Disinfected Mail Society and the Rational Dress Society. Otherwise today we might happily eat our dinner off the post and move freely in sensibly designed clothing. But a pressure group whose time has surely come is the Dozenal Society of Great Britain, about which little can be faulted but its name. It wants us to count in twelves. In its happy base-twelve world we’d keep going after nine and not reach double digits till twelve, written 10. It’s all perfectly simple. We’re nearly there, with our dozen eggs, inches in a foot, pennies in a shilling and hours on a clock. Twelve is beautifully divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, compared to ten’s narrow attraction to 5. We can now take back control of our numbers. It’s what Brexit was made for.