Q Hi Mike, sorry to go off topic, but I’ve just returned from a trip to the USA and it was sunny and rather hot. My American colleagues kept going on about it being ‘100 degrees’, but it wasn’t hot enough to boil water. Can you explain what they were on about?
Paul Curtis, address withheld
A Hi Paul, you’ve stumbled on an enduring mystery – why do Americans insist on doing everything differently? I remember visiting my sister in New York a couple of years back, and the chap on the TV said the temperature was ’30 degrees’. Naturally I walked to the local store (shop) to buy some homo (full fat milk) and a wiener (sausage), wearing only my nut huggers (Speedo swim briefs) and Hawaiian Tropic Factor 2 (same). It might have been a visual treat for the locals, but I nearly lost four toes. It was 30 degrees FARENHEIT, or as the rest of the world call it -1 degree Celsius! On my return I talked to a mathematician friend of mine who taught me this handy rhyme to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, so that I would never get caught out again. And now I’m teaching it to you-
‘Take away just 32, if indeed you’re able,
Multiply what’s left by 5, use a five times table,
When that number is revealed, divide it quick by 9,
If you find that sum too hard, then, quite frankly, you deserve to burn or freeze.’
He is a below average poet, in fairness. But his maths (NOT math) is spot on. And remember, it’s important to know the outside temperature at one of my gigs. Why? Because you’d better believe that the roof will be coming off!