RTÉ reports that the English government wants to revive the imperial system of measurements—which, Macdara has noticed, certain educated English people, possibly from a clever unconscious desire to deny the imperial legacy upon which they have suckled, refer to as the empirical system, as ingenuously as they refer to the English rather than the Latin alphabet. It is to be doubted whether a system as obtuse as imperial measurement can in fact be described as empirical, or even a system at all. 

In fact imperial measurement does not require revivification, being alive in the studios in Montrose. Listening to RTÉ’s Doc on One is a primary pastime of this writer, a habit marred only by two related phenomena. The first of these is Partitionism, whereby the presenter might explain that the IRA of the 70s were like Islamist terrorists today, a comparison that obscures many things and brings to light none, being solely a means of signifying the allegiance of the team behind the show; any mention of anticolonial violence must have Disapproval stapled to it lest we all go off and join the ‘RA. The second phenomenon is the use of imperial units. Now while it may be permissible to hear the odd reference to miles in an immortal episode such as that on Rural Electrification, set in the fifties, it is not only distracting to have to do a 8/5 calculation while listening to most episodes, but actively irritating. In an episode on chickens already marred by chicken-related puns, the presenter intentionally alienated all those who believe in a Republic by using only inches in describing the dimensions of the competitive birds. This listener’s hand was forced even while the washing up remained half-done: he laboriously pulled one wet glove off with the other to end his listening; he could not maintain his Republican Repose in the face of such aggressive Imperialism. 

When our Partionist broadcaster uses these nonsensical units, not only does the listener not know what Size the object under discussion is, but we find we are forced to participate in an active nostalgia for the senselessness of Empire. Let us call on the national broadcaster to accept its status as the media organ of a Republic and drop all miles, perches, roods, yards, leagues, fathoms, shillings, ounces, scruples, firkins, stones and feet, not one of which has the virtue of being an attractive word to have in the mouth, leaving aside their absolute lack of utility in communication.