A lot of people get themselves really jazzed with American politics. I mean, I get it — the President of the USA is an important person, so it’s good to keep up with events. But some people actually seem to enjoy it. Are they sadists?

For the past two weeks my favourite radio programme Up All Night has been hijacked by these American politicos talking enormous amounts of horsey-poo. Dr Karl’s excellent science podcast was this week unbearably difficult to listen to because presenter Rhod Sharp was sitting there in Denver surrounded by lots of people cheering. (To add insult to injury, the podcast was less than half the length it normally is.)

The thing about these party conventions in America is that they always seem so detached from reality. I know this is not an original comparison, but it really is like pantomime. A politician can say the most banal, boring thing with a clumsy delivery, but the crowd will still cheer and applaud like crazy. Bring up the enemy and they boo and hiss. And at the end of the day you will still be no clearer about what anyone will actually do if they are elected.

And speaking of the applause, and the cheering and the whooping. What is with it? I wandered into a room that had the Democratic Convention on the television last week. All that was happening was some kind of upbeat music was playing, and the people were cheering and whooping and dancing. I must have been in the room for three or four minutes. I left before anyone actually uttered a single word. I mean, what is this? The world’s biggest laughter therapy class?

When I see stuff like that, it just makes me think everyone that is sitting in that room is delusional. John McCain is never just John McCain. He is always, always, “The Next President Of The United States Of America, John McCain”. What makes them so sure? That is just cocky. I would kind of get it if it was obvious he was going to win, but even then it is like tempting fate. When Neil Kinnock tried it here in 1992 he got hammered. So why does this stuff sit well in the USA? Perhaps it is one of those things where they think, “If I say it often enough it will become true.”

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think politics should be about the issues. At least in Britain the parties pretend to talk about policies during their conferences. In America, party conventions just put too much emphasis on the razzmatazz. It’s all about the glitz and the glamour. Then there is the emotive nature of it all. Most of it seems to be about tugging on the heart-strings, and they’re not very subtle about it. It’s just too saccharine for me.

I am certainly glad I don’t live in America so that I have to actually face to prospect of having to pay attention to all of this nonsense. If you ask me, it is no surprise that turnout in the USA is so low. I would hardly be overjoyed by the prospect of choosing between the White Elephants Party and the Ridiculous Asses Party.

It is true that politicians can be quite off-putting here in Britain as well. But at least they put me off because of what they say. American politicians put me off because of what they do and how they present themselves.

What gets me is the fact that they think I would be impressed with any of the sort of silly things they do at conventions. It’s like when they get a group of people to stand behind the speaker. I think it’s meant to look like he’s so popular that he’s always got scores of people standing around him. In actual fact it looks like the speaker is facing the wrong way without realising it.

When Michelle Obama started speaking at the Democratic Convention, all of these placards suddenly appeared from within the audience. It looked like there were hundreds of them. “MICHELLE”, they said. Why was that? Were they worried she was going to forget her name? Why don’t they make her check the inside of her underpants like the rest of us have to?

I only include the video to prove the point about the placards. Don’t watch the whole video — it only encourages them. Incidentally, the first word is not even uttered until 1:19.

Evan Davies had a really interesting post on his blog about the possibility of converting from imperial to metric measurements. He notes the benefits of the metric system that we are surely all aware of — mostly that multiples of 10 and 100 are damn convenient.

Imperial, on the other hand, is a right mess. I put the word “system” in scare quotes in the first paragraph because there is no system to it. I had always assumed that a mile had to be a certain number of yards. That would only be sensible, right? Apparently not. It’s just an arbitrary distance.

The benefits of the imperial system? Evan Davies says that it’s partly down to the British being stubborn because metric wasn’t invented here. There are also the obvious costs to converting. An obvious example is the fact that if we were to change from miles to kilometres, every single road sign in the country would have to be changed at tremendous cost. There are other costs like having to get used to the new measurements.

I am a fan of the metric system, just because of its simplicity. And it was also what I was taught at school. But here is the problem. While I spent my whole time at school learning all about centimetres, hectares, litres and the like, as soon as I walked out of the school grounds everyone was talking to me about inches, pints and miles.

The end result is that I have a bit of a mish-mash of knowledge on vital measurements. I’ve never really taken inches on board, and I find that this is a particular problem. Because it seems as though everybody uses inches rather than centimetres — even people who went to school at the same time as me.

Moreover, whenever I mention centimetres or metres at work, I feel as though I might be judged for that. Under their breath, people might be saying I’m a cheese eating surrender monkey or similar, or they might think to themselves, “bloody youth of today”. The whole situation is like having a conversation where one person is speaking English and the other is speaking French (I guess that would be me, which is amusing because my foreign language skills are non-existent).

And for all of the merits of the metric system, what of the humble old British pint? As if pubs weren’t bad enough for social awkwardness, no doubt having a half litre would be too girly, while ordering a litre of Stella would make you an über wife beater or binge drinker. (Mind you, how often do you go to the pub and have only one pint?)

Evan Davies suggests that there should be a major study investigating the costs and benefits of moving to metric. But I suspect we all know what the answer is. Stick with what you know, because that’s what everyone uses. Economics textbooks look at the QWERTY keyboard layout as an example of these network effects, but people are probably more aware of VHS versus Betamax.

At the end of the day, this is about social conventions. Conventions don’t change overnight, and certainly not at the whim of governments. They have taken the whole of history to evolve to where they are today, and it is probably easiest to stick with the way things are — even if we suspect that moving to metric would be better. If only something would happen to make everyone wake up tomorrow morning and start using metric, we would all be better off.

It’s probably quite well known that QWERTY (man that’s an awkward word to type) keyboards, despite being the standard, are bloody terrible. Designed back in the days of typewriters, the QWERTY layout is said to have been designed to slow down typing to avoid the little arms clashing with each other. But look in front of you. No little arms; just a bunch of buttons in a silly order.

Part of me is tempted to just bite the bullet and switch to the Dvorak layout, which some say is more efficient. But of course I couldn’t do that. I would have to re-learn the keyboard layout when I’ve been using QWERTY all my life. I would keep all of the habits that I have developed while learning QWERTY. And perhaps most worryingly of all, if I had to use a public (or anyone else’s) computer I would have to use QWERTY anyway — which means using two systems in tandem.

Everyone is in the same quandary, but we all stick with QWERTY because we wouldn’t be able to shake off all the issues that would arise from switching. Likewise, imagine if some time in the 1980s the government said, “right, enough of these inferior VHS machines — you’re all using Betamax from now on.”

The same goes with metric. Even though most suspect a metric world would make more sense, we would all still measure short distances in inches and order drinks in pints.

Update: The Hard Sell…: Penny for your martyrs.

I also feel like pointing out right now that I have no idea what an ounce is, nor can I imagine what any value of Fahrenheit feels like.