60 5 Attitudes

provokes warnings from British bus builders about 'the end of the double-decker bus as we know it'. The British public is always ready to listen to such predictions of doom.

Systems of measurement are another example. The British govern­ment has been trying for years and years to promote the metric system and to get British people to use the same scales that are used nearly everywhere else in the world. But it has had only limited success. British manufacturers are obliged to give the weight of their tins and packets in kilos and grams. But everybody in Britain still shops in pounds and ounces (see chapter 15). The weather forecasters on the television use the Celsius scale of temperature. But nearly everybody still thinks in Fahrenheit (see chapter 3). British people continue to measure distances, amounts of liquid and themselves using scales of measurement that are not used anywhere else in Europe (> How far? How big? How much?). Even the use of the 24-hour clock is comparatively restricted.

British governments sometimes seem to promote this pride in being different. In 1993 the managers of a pub in Slough (west of London) started selling glasses of beer which they called 'swifts' (25 cl) and 'larges' (50 cl), smaller amounts than the traditional British equivalents of half a pint and a pint. You might think that the authorities would have been pleased at this voluntary effort to adopt European habits. But they were not. British law demands that draught beer be sold in pints and half-pints only. The pub was fined £3, 100 by a court and was ordered to stop selling the 'continental' measures. British governments have so far resisted pressure from business people to adopt Central European Time, remaining stubbornly one hour behind, and they continue to start their financial year not, as other countries do, at the beginning of the calendar year but at the beginning of April!

The love of nature

Most of the British live in towns and cities. But they have an idealized vision of the countryside. To the British, the countryside has almost none of the negative associations which it has in some countries, such as poor facilities, lack of educational opportunities, unemploy­ment and poverty. To them, the countryside means peace and quiet, beauty, good health and no crime. Most of them would live in a country village if they thought that they could find a way of earning a living there. Ideally, this village would consist of thatched cottages (see chapter 19) built around an area of grass known as a 'village green'. Nearby, there would be a pond with ducks on it. Nowadays such a village is not actually very common, but it is a stereotypical picture that is well-known to the British.

Some history connected with the building of the Channel tunnel (see chapter 17) provides an instructive example of the British

> The National Trust

A notable indication of the British reverence for both the countryside and the past is the strength of the National Trust. This is an officially recognized charity whose aim is to preserve as much of Britain's coun­tryside and as many of its historic buildings as possible by acquiring them 'for the nation'. With more than one-and-a-half million members, it is the largest conserva­tion organization in the world. It is actually the third largest landowner in Britain (after the Crown and the Forestry Commission). It owns more than 500 miles of the coast­line. The importance of its work has been supported by several laws, among which is one which does not allow even the government to take over any of its land without the approval of Parliament.