All change -- and no half measures

and their regulars are measuring up to the metric change

DOWN at The Quarter Gill the regulars have their own way with whisky

weights and measures. They describe the difference between the old

imperial and the new metric units as a ''ba' hair'', a ''drip'', a

''teaspoon'' or, with a hint of sentimental farewell to a little piece

of Scottish heritage, a ''teardrop''.

Everyone agrees there is nothing much in it. The quarter gill might be

gone, another victim of EU directives, but there is no rush to rename

the pub. Certainly not to the 35 Ml, the spirits measure issuing since

the turn of the year from converted optics. At 90 pence it remains one

of the best value drams in the city of Glasgow.

That was how the pub got its name. It was a convenient way of

advertising the generosity of that reassuring measure which became a

trade mark of free houses, particularly in the west of Scotland.

Significantly, it remains one of three slightly defiant The Quarter Gill

public houses in the city. Therefore, we must be specific and state that

our research crawl began yesterday at The Quarter Gill in Oswald Street,

just around from The Arches theatre where the trains rumble from Central

Station.

It is comfortable and friendly. As competitive as the prices only in

the rush to get to the bar. The walls feature boxing photographs,

reflecting the previous professional background of licensee Willie Hart

who gained the Scottish middleweight belt in 1961. He admits he might be

considering a re-naming to The Old Quarter Gill, as a commemorative

touch more than anything else.

The transition has caused little stir. Few comments have been received

from regulars. The expenditure on new optics was #200 from an

Edinburgh-based firm, but with a life-expectancy of not much more than a

year, optics are regularly renewed in any case. The fact is that an old

quarter-gill shop going over to 35 ml measures is the least traumatic

place to be in the metric transition, except perhaps private golf clubs

and social clubs which are exempt from the legislation adopted by the

British Government in response to the directive.

Even so, regulars in The Quarter Gill are correct to discern a slight

difference in their haufs, however slight. A demonstration involving a

new 35 ml measure poured into an old quarter-gill pewter measure

revealed a hair's breadth shortfall. The quarter gill is a fractionally

larger measure, converting to 35.5 ml to be precise. As our survey

continued, taking us to The Quarter Gill on Dumbarton Road, we were

given the precise saving in spirits by licensee Ricky Monaghan. After

the conversion to the metric measures he saves a half measure of spirits

out of a 1.5 litre bottle on the optic. A profit of 50 pence, offset by

the requirement to display new optics, signs, and price-lists.

''I have just kept the prices the same at #1 for the new measure of

whisky. It is more of a nuisance than anything, but what is annoying is

that the quarter gill was an old Scottish measure and part of our

heritage.

''Regulars were joking about having to rename the pub. There was a bit

of a wind-up suggestion that The Quarter Gill would become an illegal

name. The measure may no longer exist, but there are pubs called The

Flying Horse or The Drunken Duck, and horses no more fly than ducks get

drunk. In 10 years' time we'll have people in here saying that they

remember the days of the real quarter-gill measures.

''It is unfortunate that the bureaucrats in Brussels have intervened,

and annoying when you look at any bar in Portugal, Spain, or Greece, or

just about any bar in Europe. They never use measures at all. The barman

just pours it out. Britain, with so many people and bodies that govern,

seems to be the only country upholding this directive. I have publican

friends in Ireland who are just refusing to go metric.''

There are other rumoured pockets of resistance in pubs around

Shettleston and Parkhead. Along Duke Street in Dennistoun there is

belligerence in signs outside pubs which still advertise prices for

quarter-gill measures. But the change to metrics seems, sadly, to have

coincided with the sudden demise of the third The Quarter Gill public

house. It closed a couple of weeks before Christmas, which may be

symbolic. Or maybe it was the chagrin of impending metrics that proved

the final straw.

Yet the relative fairness of the quarter-gill conversion to the 35 ml

measure remains a triumph for the Scottish Licensed Trade Association

which lobbied hard for this larger measure, retaining a semblance of

Scottish distinctiveness over the 25 ml measure adopted widely in

England to replace the sixth of a gill. Traditionally, the sixth of a

gill is most common in Aberdeen and the North of Scotland where the new

25 ml measure will dominate along with small price increases to take

into account the increase from an equivalent of 23.67 ml.

The problem area is the traditional fifth of a gill measure, prevalent

in most brewer-owned pubs and used widely in most pubs in Central

Scotland. The fifth is caught in a kind of no-man's land, converting to

28.4 ml, between the new 25 ml and 35 ml measures. The Scottish Licensed

Trade News reports that distillers are urging licensees to move upwards

to the 35 ml measures to encourage larger volume sales to offset lower

gross profit margins, but bar price increases are inevitable and

justified, even if this is liable to antagonise regulars.

The alternative for former fifth-of-a-gill houses is to drop to the

new 25 ml measures, offering 3.4 ml less spirits at an unchanged price.

This is the option offered to Billy Dallas at his Scottish

Breweries-owned local, which he declines to name, and he says that

regulars are highly unimpressed by the justification that the smaller

measure will subsidise new optics and ''retraining of staff''.

''That was what we were told over the bar,'' he scoffs. ''What

retraining? Are they teaching staff to haud their arm up shorter or

longer for the new metric measures? Without a doubt this is a case of

the punter being asked to pay the price of bureaucracy.''

Back at The Quarter Gill in Oswald Street, Alan Bruce is equally

resentful over the interference with Scottish measures. The narrower his

glass, the more he is convinced he is being diddled as he surveys his

double vodka. ''It is discrimination against the people, forced on us by

the EU. I worked in Holland for years and they didn't even know what

measures were.''

Which explains the attraction for a pub that refuses to surrender the

spirit, if not the measure, of the quarter gill. One thing is certain.

Whether it is the Aberdonian's dram, the Glaswegian's hauf, the

Edinburgher's nip, the Borderer's wee goldie, the tourist's Scotch, or

the toff's large one, there are some names that legislation cannot

obliterate, and that in itself creates a nonsense of the Euro objective

to standardise the serious business of ordering a drink.