[LEAPSECS] the abbreviation UTC

[Ian Batten]

> 

> Might work in the USofA but in the UK not so. When the UK converted to metric weights, large numbers of shop owners were convicted and fined for selling goods on a non existent weight scale (imperial pound and ounces) instead of kilogrammes., even though the scales were accurate.



Only in tabloid land.  A handful of merchants who had been repeatedly warned by trading standards decided to push the point in some UKIP-style "it's all the EU, innit?" quest for martyrdom.  Regrettably, the courts had little option but to grant them their wish.  One was using scales which weren't stamped by weights and measures, which is an offence in its own right.   One was selling short measure, which is an offence irrespective of what measure is used.  A couple were refusing to display metric measure in parallel with imperial measure.  There's even been a case the other way around, involving litre beer glasses, in which Miliband Minor quite rightly told Doncaster Trading Standards to do something useful with taxpayers' money rather than wasting it.   Half a dozen cases isn't "a large number" and the cases were the very definition of people itching to be convicted to "make a point" or "out of principle" or something.

ian