THE last time I checked, I found to my horror that I weighed 15 stone.

Don’t ask me what that is in kilograms.

I gather that 12 to 13 stone is a healthier weight for someone who is six feet one inch tall. If I were to lose the recommended weight I might be able to fit into trousers with a 34-inch waist again.

I haven’t a clue what those measurements are in centimetres.

This highlights the stupidity of Britain’s weights and measures. At school we were only told of litres, grams and kilograms, metres, centimetres and kilometres.

Then we step into an environment of miles per hour, feet and inches, pounds and stone, pints and gallons.

Ask anyone of any generation their height or weight and they’ll usually give it in feet or stone. In this regard education didn’t equip us for the outside world.

It seems that Boris Johnson is going to limp on for perhaps another year. We can leave aside the fact that his declaration that he wants to bring back imperial is another transparent attempt to bury the bad news of 'partygate' and his crumbling credibility.

It does makes sense to eliminate the confusion, choose one system, and match the worlds inside schools and outside. Either teach youngsters about feet, inches, pints and stone or switch everything to metres, centimetres, litres and kilograms.

It would instantly make GCSE maths and physics more relevant. Either the school curriculum or the shops and road signs need to change.

Europe-haters and those who instinctively believe that anything modern is somehow degenerate will of course approve of the plan to bring back imperial. But it’s clear that not all of the prime minister’s cabinet do.

One minister commented that the idea was 'absolutely bananas', while another said they had “no idea which muppet had come up with that idea”.

Businesses, too, are appalled.

And it was under a Conservative government that the move to metric first began, with the establishment of the Metrication Board in the 1950s.

It was in charge of replacing old measurements with metric ones and swapping the old monetary system of pounds, shillings and pence for decimal currency. But it was closed in 1980 – so the job was left half-done.

Thus we trundle along with this inconsistent mess of two systems operating at once. We’ll buy petrol by the litre but boast about how many miles to the gallon our cars can achieve.

If we are sensible enough to adopt just one system, then we should also be sensible enough to opt for metric. It is simpler, more accurate and more straightforward in every way.

Metric measurements are far more precise. For this reason all scientists use them.

They are also clearer. Milli- is one thousandth, centi- one hundredth and kilo- is one thousand, and all these prefixes can be attached to metre, litre or gram.

But there are 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, eight furlongs in a mile, eight pints in a gallon, 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pound in a stone. Why?

Imperial fans might want to bear in mind that imperial measurements are not native British inventions anyway, but have a European origin noticeable in their shortened versions.

The abbreviation for pound – lb – comes straight from the Latin word libra, while oz for ounce is from Italian onzo.

Brexiters will denounce metric. But I thought Brexit was supposed to be about more money for the NHS, rather than imposing impractical and outdated weights and measures.

That’s what it said on the side of the bus anyway. We’re still waiting.

Some people regard them as importantly British, but it would do no noticeable damage to Britain’s identity to go metric. We’d still have Shakespeare, red double-decker buses, football and lager louts.

Changing wouldn’t be without its problems. In the 1990s road signs in the Republic of Ireland began to go metric, with distances stated in kilometres.

But speed limit signs didn’t change until 2005, and remained in miles per hour. Tourists in hired cars would see the “30” sign, drive along at 30 kilometres per hour, and wonder why everyone was shooting past them.

But if metric were introduced throughout Britain we would adapt well, just as we adapted well to decimal currency.

Yet imperial measurements would probably linger in our language.

I can’t see myself arguing that the metric system is better than imperial by a million kilometres.

And on a Friday evening after a long working week, I’m unlikely to ask a colleague: “Do you fancy a swift 568 millilitres?”