Ethan Switch - Monday, 15 March 2004
Rumbled and disrupted by a few hundred train travellers dying across the capital, Spain's elections were thrown into turmoil as the accusations started flying on who exactly is responsible. Basque separatists? Anniversary challenged al-Qaeda? Car manufacturers?
Picked through like a fine tooth there have yet to report of martyrs for the bombings. On a quieter scale, celebrations of the British Weights and Measurements have started now that their newly inducted martyr, Steve Thoburn, finally died.
The Sunderland greengrocer fruited his reputation as the "metric martyr" to millions when he had his market stall raided for selling bananas by the pound. Funding to the campaign against the compulsory conversion to the metric system exploded with this all while Thoburn was still alive and kicking tyres.
Shopped and presented as a martyr for their cause, the British Weights and Measurements Association are all thumbs up for the heart failure which reaped Thoburn's life. "Indeed a martyr!" said their release.