"The appeal failed in 2002 and Steven returned to work but things for him and the country were never the same again. He died aged 39 after a heart attack in 2004 leaving a widow, Leigh, their young children Georgia and Jay and a son Rhys from a previous relationship. Leigh also passed away in 2017."
To die of the stress caused by (indirectly) being enforced to use a 'new' measurement system must be one of the weirdest causes of deaths i have ever read about.
Even fines seem wildly disproportionate. Its one thing to regulate how one interacts with the gocernment, it is quite a lot less appropriate for government to regulate private transactions when the validity is easily and cheaply verifiable by either party.
Sure but dictating what units to use is a bit overboard. A pound should be a pound and a kilo a kilo but what units I use in commerce is my business, not the state’s.
It would have been a lot easier for him if he had simply sold the bananas at a flat per-banana price. That's typically how many grocery stores in the US sell them (notably Trader Joe's). Here in Japan, they typically sell them in small bunches for a fixed price, with the small bananas sold at a lower price (for a group of 3 or 4) and the larger ones at a higher price next to them. There's no need to weigh bananas at the point at the point of sale at all.
There was a whole court thing, he lost, and then he died aged 39 of a heart attack.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/metric-...