The Two Metre Rule

In the middle ages, church music mostly used a 3:1 metre (think waltzes). Music with a 4:1 metre -- what we erroneously call common time, but was in the middle ages known as tempus imperfectum cum prolatione imperfecta -- was usually considered of lower sort, often shunned. As the Latin title indicates, music in four was considered imperfect, music in three perfect -- owing in part to its association with the Trinity.

For some reason we increasingly do not divide by three. Music remains something of an exception, with most music still usually divisible by either 4 or 3, though 4/4 has undoubtedly become the default time signature. Two, three and four seem to be the most natural divisions for man. Any higher than that is of significantly less use. We think in threes and twos, and so to have any system that would deal only in threes, or only in twos, would be a very limited system -- and indeed it is.

We still have an imperial system which allows for measurements in threes as well as twos, and people still use it informally, even if officially it is, at the very least, not encouraged. Imperial measures are drawn form the body and the environment and the history of a people, not imposed on us artificially from above. An inch is more easily comprehended than 2cm, an ounce more tangible than 50 grams, and six feet more real than two metres. I'm not even sure what a metre is, an abstract term which is only useful poetry or music. Even then, it isn't a measurement in itself but rather a category of measurement -- imabic pentametre and compound time, for example.

The stupid -- and it turns out arbitrary -- two metre rule seems to symbolise the state we are in. This lockdown is foreign to English constitution. It is only natural, then, that it is employed in the measurements favoured by European despots and statist busybodies (guess, if you do not already know, which revolution introduced the metric system to the modern world...)

It is another symbol of our loss of liberty, just as ineffective face masks are symbolic gags. Keep two 'metres' away from each other at all times; cover your mouth with a mask; do not gather together in groups of any number, publicly or privately; do not spread misinformation online; do not attend church; come out at 8 o'clock every Thursday to applaud 'our NHS', then go back into your homes and do not come out.