Chocks Away…

Canada officially went metric over 20 years ago but judging from the mangled measurements and invented significant digits in the daily press, you’d never know it. Apparently, Canadian journalists are trained to read & write but not to count.

The Globe & Mail, published in Toronto, calls itself “Canada’s National Newspaper” and prides itself on its business reporting. However, a day doesn’t go by when they don’t print some totally ridiculous metric conversions. Given that exchange rates, hedge funds and tax laws are far more complicated than metres and kilograms, trusting their financial guidance could be a very risky business.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. For the last few months, the G&M has have been revisiting some of the events of the dying days of the war. Today’s column discussed some of the aerial reconnaissance carried out by specially configured Spitfires. Apparently, the entire German managed to fit itself into just 1486 square metres, about the size of half a soccer pitch. Fortunately, the clever chaps studying the photos were able to spot them. Sounds like the old Monty Python sketch on how not to be seen. No mention though of whether they got the Hun with a single bomb.

The original G&M article can be found here, but they’re news items disappear from view in a week, so grab a look-see as soon as you read this or it’ll be gone.