During a recent work trip to Jamaica, I was faced with an issue I’ve struggled with in the USA, but in reverse.

Allow me to explain….

In the US, temperature is measured in Fahrenheit, whereas in the UK (and the rest of the known world) it’s measured in Celsius. This has been a pain in the arse [ass] over the last 4 years trying to manually figure out the temperature by removing 30 and then halving it.

No, really!

For example, if the temperature is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I deduct 30 (making it 70 degrees), then I halve it, leaving me with 35(ish) degrees Celsius.

It’s not an exact science, but it gives me something to reference quickly so i’m not a clueless twat almost every day; I leave that to everyone else around me.

So what does this have to do with my trip to Jamaica?

Well, in my hotel room the air conditioning unit was in Celsius. You’d think this would be easy for a Brit, but I have only ever used A/C in the USA and therefore only ever adjusted temperatures in Fahrenheit because England is cold enough to adequately retract a scrotum. As a result, there has never been a need to have air conditioning in the UK. If you want to cool down your gaff [house], you simply open a window, or a door, or turn off the heating.

So with this in mind, you can imagine the irony of having to reverse engineer the mathematics so I could figure out the temperature in Fahrenheit so I knew which temperature to select in Celsius to cool the room down.

Seriously, I couldn’t make this up.

Being a Brit in America can still be a ballsache at times, retracted or otherwise.