While waiting for the taxi at 4.50 this morning at my new thankfully bed-bug free motel in Townsville I happened to glance back into the ground floor car park. Having had to do more conversions from feet to metres and back than I care to remember this just didn't sound right but at that time of the day I was still half-asleep more concerned with the impending arrival of my taxi than the mathematics of the situation.
After I got home I did a quick calculation, not using the sloppy 3.281 conversion factor but the figure which has been seared into my brain for longer than I care to remember, 3.2808455805, a number which I still find quite handy. So, 2.07m is 6.791350351635 feet which equals 81.49620421962 inches, or call it 81.5 if you prefer. So, if you're still stuck in the non-metric dark ages of the Imperial era you're being short changed by a good 12 inches. This is the first sign I've seen in an eternity which actually has imperial measurements on it, presumably for the benefit of British and American tourists. But, if you were prepared to go to such lengths to avoid someone getting their camper-van stuck underneath your hotel you'd think they'd take the time to get the conversion right.
Methinks someone has nicked an apostrophe, ol' son :-))
6'9" should pretty well round it out; funny how ya remember things... I have hed .3048 seared in my brain since 1966!!
Posted by: Ian | Saturday, 21 April 2007 at 07:37 PM
Ian, quite correct I suspect, the old foot marker is probably missing. Mind you, at that time of the morning I'm not at my most forgiving !
Posted by: IanH | Sunday, 22 April 2007 at 04:48 PM