I had the occasion to watch a bit of television for a few days recently, whilst away from home.

Watching the current World Snooker Championship, I was struck from the commentary that it is very much an 'Imperial game' i.e. one which is described in customary measurements.

Millions watch the snooker tournaments on TV, including of course many youngsters keen on snooker, some of them under 10.

They will have heard this week of snooker shots 'falling a few inches short (and being called a 'miss'), or of '6 feet between the cue ball and the red', or 'a couple of feet over the baulk line'. Etc. etc.

The rules of snooker, some of which are reproduced below, are all in Imperial. Or should that be 'hidden metric'?

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Rules of Snooker

Type of Game: International or 'English' snooker is the most widely played form of snooker around the world. It is generally played on 6' x 12' English billiard tables, with cushions that are more narrow than on pocket billiard tables and which curve smoothly into the pocket openings. 5' x 10' and snooker tables of even smaller playing dimensions may be used for the game.

On a 6' x 12' snooker (English billiard) table the playing area within the cushion faces shall measure 11' 8.5" x 5' 10" with a tolerance on both dimensions of +/-0.5".

The height of the table is measured from the floor to the top of the cushion rail, and the height shall measure 34" with an allowable variance of +/-0.5".

Players: 2

Balls Used: Set of Snooker balls: fifteen object balls that are not numbered and are solid red, six object balls...in International Snooker the balls used are 2 - 1/16" diameter.

Baulk-line and Baulk: A straight line drawn 29" from the face of the bottom cushion and parallel to it is called the Baulk-line and the intervening space termed the Baulk.

The Half Circle: The Half Circle is a semi-circle described in Baulk with its center at the middle of the Baulk-line and with a radius of 11.5". When the striker has cue ball in hand within the Half Circle he may place the base of the cue ball...

Now now!

You can easily make that out to a vast number of decimal places after the point if you take the time to measure it with one of those tapes with metric on one side and imperial on the other.

And some people do that sort of thing.

<<And some people do that sort of thing.
>>

Apparently the World Snooker organization has already thought of it.
However, it does appear the rules are Imperial-primary.
http://www.worldsnooker.com/about_the_rules.htm

<<
SECTION 1. EQUIPMENT

Measurements in parenthesis state the metric equivalent to the nearest millimetre

1. The Standard Table

Dimensions
(a) The playing area within the cushion faces shall measure 11 ft
8½in x 5ft 10in (3569mm x 1778mm) with a tolerance
on both dimensions of +/_ ½ in (+/_ 13mm).

Height
(b) The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushion
Rail shall be from 2ft9½in to 2ft 10½in (851mm to 876mm).
{snipped}
>>

<<
SECTION 1. EQUIPMENT

Measurements in parenthesis state the metric equivalent to the nearest millimetre

1. The Standard Table

Dimensions
(a) The playing area within the cushion faces shall measure 11 ft
8½in x 5ft 10in (3569mm x 1778mm) with a tolerance
on both dimensions of +/_ ½ in (+/_ 13mm).

Height
(b) The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushion
Rail shall be from 2ft9½in to 2ft 10½in (851mm to 876mm).
>>

Dear snooker chappies

Let's see if we can do it a bit more sensibly

Playing area

The original tolerance is +/- 13 mm so why not make it +/- 10 mm or 0.01 m
then we have:

3.57 m x 1.78 m

Height

The range of measures are over a 25 mm interval so why not make it
850 mm to 875 mm

Easy peasy

Yes, and each time the game is played imperial words are shouted out so everyone will have it driven into their brain that snookers is the pride of imperial. This is going to make me just want to run out and by a snooker table so that I can say to everyone: "Look I have a viable representation of a bona-fide inch based product". If you ever need to have your inch sticks calibrated just come over and place them on my snooker table. Wee, won't that be fun?


Tony, can you show us anything modern and 21-st century that is imperial? I'm really getting bored of you always posting something from the 17-th century as proof of imperial. I live in the 21-st century, so are there any 21-st century imperial products or standards? No one seems to be finding any and posting them here for all of us to see. Maybe some of you imperialists can help Tony. He isn't doing to well on his own.

re (Daniel Jackson): "Tony, can you show us anything modern and 21st century that is Imperial?"

REPLY: A daft question, as I'll explain when I have more time, but I like a challenge, so typed in 'extreme skateboarding' as a good example of a modern, 21st century activity.

The first product that I saw on sale as I searched sites concerning extreme skateboarding was:

Mindless Junior ATB 33" ALL TERRAIN MOUNTAIN BOARD NEW

P.S. They brought out a brand new beer in the U.K. two years ago, and, what do you know? - they're selling it by the pint! And at a local pub you can even order a half-gallon flagon of the stuff!

Or a quart, for that matter

Nope! I had a skateboard and went skateboarding when I was a kid in the 1960s. Oh, and since those skateboards today are made in China no doubt, rest assured they are made to metric dimensions on metric machines.

Daniel said:

"Yes, and each time the game is played imperial words are shouted out so everyone will have it driven into their brain that snookers is the pride of imperial"

You obviously don't know snooker that well.
Take it from me - people DO NOT do that - they simply get on and play the game.

What a odd comment form someone I presumed was pro-metric (in a strange sort of way).

Skateboarding in the 60's? I thought skateboards happened upon us in the late 70's?

I think that the pool world championship is on now too (I believe that a pool table is half the size of a snooker one?)

MY GOD! You're in your 50's!

I would NEVER have placed you in that age bracket.