A friend sent me a link to a funny but alarming article in The Register today regarding a young woman's invalid scratchcard claim. Basically each scratchcard has a temperature printed on it; the idea is to scratch away a small window to reveal a number that is hidden beneath it. If the uncovered number is less than the printed temperature then the card owner wins a prize. The temperature on the woman's card was -8 degrees and the number she uncovered was -6; she was not happy when Camelot refused to acknowledge her claim. She was reported to say "I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8, but I'm not having it."
Being an Englishman, hot Summer days are a rare experience and we tend to report the temperature in farenheit, for example "It must be 90 degrees today, quick get me another beer!" Yet on a cold, frosty morning as we're scraping the ice off the car windows we're equally likely to exclaim how it must be at least -5 which of course is measured in centigrade.
Perhaps 32 degrees centigrade doesn't seem quite as hot as 90 degrees farenheit and maybe 23 farenheit feels a lot warmer than -5 centigrade? I guess turning up the central heating always feels more justified when it's zero outside rather than 32 degrees.
:-)
No comments:
Post a Comment