Book description
A serious and seriously funny book about weights and measures. It
explains what they are, how they come about and how they are formed and
shaped by the one guiding principle of measurement that no one ever
mentions: that most of us have better things to think about. This is the
only book devoted to the mishmash of bodges, estimates and
rules-of-thumb that makes up the 'system' of measurement used by most
people most of the time and the only book to reveal how they have given
rise to traditional measurement systems. You will find out why an old
wellington boot is as important an instrument of spacial awareness as
was ever invented, why how tired your ox gets, how much water it takes
to drown you, and how much you can hold in one hand while doing
something else are all essential principals underlying how man has
balanced and judged his world since the dawn of time. In part this is a
case for the use of Imperial measurement in Britain, but not entirely
so: common measures have been used in all societies and ages; the metric
system is often adapted to suit them rather than the other way around
and Imperial measures themselves are not always a true system of common
measurement (the older American version of it is closer).
Born in 1962 in Dagenham, Warwick Cairns now lives in Windsor with
his wife and two daughters. After studying English and Psychology at
Keele and English at Yale, he went on to drill wells on a Sioux
reservation in Dakota and travel to Africa with Wilfred Thesiger,
before settling on a career in advertising. This is his first book.
