I thought I would mention that last night Larry King had Andrew Morton on talking about the Princess Diana tapes. The subject matter is not my concern; however, they were talking about Diana's change in weight after marrying Prince Charles and Andrew Morton said:

You look at the pictures of Diana before she married, and the pictures of her after she married, which I put in the book deliberately to show this thing, that Diana was slightly plump, slightly overweight before she married, and then within a matter of months she'd lost several stones in weight.

Notice that Andrew Morton used the term stone. He seems like a very young and modern Brit. One would expect him to say she lost several kilos in weight, but he didn't.

Only an ultra-few people in the UK use kilos (or even just 'pounds') for personal weight.

I'm perplexed - didn't Larry King question what a 'stone' was? I thought the stone was unheard of in America?

The pronouns "thee","thine" etc are unheard of to-day, yet we all know what they mean. That is my theory.

SteveH wrote

<<
Only an ultra-few people in the UK use kilos (or even just 'pounds') for personal weight.
>>

WHen did you last have your weight checked in a hospital or doctor's surgery? If it was in the last 15 years (and not in the US) it would almost certainly have been recorded in kilograms.

Even so. If you have your weight recorded at the doctors and are used to having it expressed in kilograms, why would he then turn around and say stones?

(And no Larry King did not ask what a stone was)

<<<<Only an ultra-few people in the UK use kilos (or even just 'pounds') for personal weight>>>

I still stick by this, regardless of how the records are stored officially. To think otherwise is to live in cloud cuckoo land. When I was given a questionaire for my weight I put st/lb in (because that's what the boxes asked for). If some jobsworth has to sit there with a calculator just to keep the EU folk smiling then , to be honest, that's their problem.

I have two doctor friend (in their 20's) and what you say is true in regards to recording weight. However all discussions are done in "British".

Indeed whenever there is a conversation on - say - the Atkins diet - my two doc friends don't even touch kilogrammes.

Life can somtimes be different to statute text and officialdom, martin, go for a drive for your own best example!

I'll give you a tip - when it comes to personal choice on what measures brit's use - stick to the labelling on a bottle of coke if you want to get yourself a "mini-victory".

Steve, I really thin kyou should get this metric cola bottle fetish of yours seen to, mate. Personally, I'ld prefer it if coke was bottled by the quart.

TO be brutaly honest - I'd prefer to have a choice