Perfect fit

ALL the talk about reintroducing imperial measurements reminded me of when my father and I were working on a large barn conversion.

We had to check the length of a joist with a tape measure that had imperial on one side and metric on the reverse.

I took one end of the tape and gave my father the business end. After rolling it out along the joist, I shouted to Dad: ‘What’s the length?’

He looked down at the tape and replied ‘ Five metres’ before turning it over and saying ‘… and five inches’. A perfect fit!

PETER DAY, Liverpool. IF GOD intended us to use the metric system, he’d have given us ten fingers. Oh, wait . . .

RICK TAYLOR, Eynsham, Oxon.