Pint of plain still your only man as metric exemption stays

THE pint of plain remains your only man, despite the best efforts of some Eurocrats to turn it into something other than pint-sized.

Amid fears that the pint would go the way of the bent banana or curvy cucumbers, and be Eurofied beyond recognition, tipplers of beer, cider and milk can now raise their pots with pride.

The pint is here to stay, the European Parliament has agreed, after consultation with consumers and business groups.

And Britain can continue to use miles in their road signs and feet on low bridges.

The acre is still officially gone, changed to hectares.

Ireland and Britain had an exemption from using metric only for the past few years and this was reviewed recently.

Even though milk in plastic containers and cartons is sold in litres, milk in returnable bottles is still available in pints and will continue to be.

Lager, beer, stout and cider in draught can continue to be sold in pint and half-pint glasses.

Business argued that it would cost too much to change especially as exports to the US must have both metric and imperial information. Changing labels for exports would cost up to €630 million a year.

However, consumers and teachers told the EU they wanted metric only, pointing out that for the last 30 years only metric measurement has been taught. “Over half the population has no idea what imperial measurements mean,” they pointed out.

Consumers said having goods labelled with both made it confusing and difficult to compare different brands.

But the EU agreed that there was no need to add extra costs to businesses and said provided labels were in both metric and imperial, consumers could compare goods.

In fact, as a safety precaution they said it was better to keep both to avoid the kind of misunderstanding that led to the US Mars lander spacecraft that malfunctioned and crashed on Mars because imperial indications had been mixed up with metric during production.

Britain will keep its troy ounce measurement for precious metals as the London bullion market argued it would go out of business as its main competitors in Zurich and New York also used the troy ounce.

Although Britain said it intended to change all road distance and speed signs to metric, as Ireland did on January 2005, they have not yet done so.

The EU has told them they can keep miles if they wish. They are also allowed to continue to show the height of low bridges in feet, despite continental lorry drivers fears that they may get confused.