BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART FIFTEENTY HUNDRED AND ELEVENTEEN: The measure of a man is his yardstick. In the case of Boris Johnson, give him 2.54 centimetres, and he will take a lot more than 1.6 kilometres.
Johnson, predictably, is bullish about the change. He was never one to hide his light under 36.37 litres.
“People love the old system,” gibbered Johnson in his usual hi-viz jacket, while disrupting one of the few production lines left in the UK. “Everybody loves the Imperial Jackboot. I mean, measures, I mean, erm, yes, no, vaccines, it’s right that we should move on and concentrate on what matters to the public. Crowns on glasses! Half crowns in pockets!”
Suddenly those quaint old conversion charts from the fifties are selling for huge sums. How many stone to the hundredweight, how many pecks to the bushel, how many inches to the Rod, Jane and Freddy.
“In for a penny, in for 240d,” remarked Mark Upp, newly created Head of the Brexit Business Cheerleaders (BBC). “The old measures, or should I say the new measures, are not difficult to 1.83 metres. All it means is that England will now be in a 5.6 kilometres of its own.”
Equally predictably, the Minister for the Early Victorian Period, Jacob Rees-Mogg, put his 30.48 centimetres in it. “People don’t care about fluff like the cost of living,” he said, weighing each sanctimonious syllable carefully, as if on scales calibrated in scruples. “We are putting the Great back into Britain! Sovereignty means bringing back the gold sovereign, the great British 454 grams!”
Another minister in favour of reintroducing old money was Artificial Stimulants Minister, Michael Gove. “I’m all in favour of the old LSD,” he remarked in a silly voice, pulling faces as he did so. “Groovy man, far out! The sky is melting… wow, cosmic baby… you should try some, it’s seriously good shit…”
Although he might have been slightly 6.35kg-ed.