Apparently the stubbornness and badger-like tenacity of the English is enough to put the EU in its place. It’s time someone did; I can believe the government had the nerve, but I’m glad it didn’t last.

The decision to abandon plans to replace traditional imperial weights and measures with metric units was announced by Gunter Verheugen, Europe’s Industry Commissioner, who conceded: “This is a pointless battle. . . there was absolutely no point at all in trying to get rid of the particular heritage of one member state.”

Gee, ya think? No freaking kidding. I remember when I lived in Langley, BC for a short while and all the streets were numbered. “It’s efficient,” said my ex-husband. “And it’s easy to find your way!” It’d be efficient and easy to find my way if I was a robot, too, but let’s face it: being raised on 124th Street cannot possibly inform your self-image in the same way as Mountain Oak Drive, or Wolfcreek Road. Let’s leave the metric system to the Scientific Priesthood; Imperial measures are part of our heritage, and mere efficiency is not a good enough reason to change them.

“Things such as pints and miles and feet and inches are what makes us love Britain. We don’t want to get rid of them. The idea that you could not go for a pint in a pub in Britain is not acceptable.”

I agree completely.

Christianity Today has reprinted online a fascinating old interview from 1979 with Madeleine L’Engle.

I’m ashamed to admit I’ve only read part of A Wrinkle in Time, but now that I’m a grown-up I really feel I should give L’Engle’s children’s books another try.