An American friend tells me that a few years ago the United States, or at least the part she lives in, experimented with going metric.

'We tried it for a bit, but we didn't like it, so it sort of went away', she said.

I like that. That's a real democratic decision - unlike most democratic decisions which are made by a very small number of people these days.

It probably wasn't quite so simple as 'it sort of went away'. It almost certainly involved a committee of some kind, probably lots of committees.

We in Britain, however, have been trying metric for some time now, in that typically British way of letting it sneak up on us and bite us on the bottom. I don't think we really like it, but I can tell you it won't go away because we have got to become more European and order things in kilos and litres.

I had been talking about metric to my friend because I had earlier that day been tormenting a supermarket assistant by asking for half a kilo of cheese.

Now I know I shouldn't, torment them I mean, and I felt a bit guilty. But the supermarket in question had spent a lot of cash emblazoning its aisles with notices informing us that it was going fully metric for the convenience of its customers so I felt justified. Have you ever noticed that anything done to any shop, supermarket, public body, giant conglomerate etc 'for the convenience of our customers' is always anything but and usually purely for the convenience of the said body?

This assistant said the scales didn't measure in kilos. I pointed out that everything was marked in kilos. She checked the till again and said she could do it in grammes. I said in that case I would have 500 grammes and she asked me if that was about a pound, so I gave up and said yes, sort of.

I wouldn't mind if everything had gone over the kilos and litres properly but it hasn't. What we have now is a kind of hybrid. Prices are marked in kilos but with equivalents in price per pound underneath. Except in some cases they are still marked in pounds and ounces or still in price per pound. Thus you have signs shrieking 'save £1.99 a pound' on items which are marked per kilo. The best one recently was a ticket saying cheese reduced from £6.93 per kilo to £2.20 a pound.

Some items are sold in grammes but not nicely rounded up to 100 or 500 but in interim grammes to match what used to be a quarter or half a pound And it's the same with litres - they are marked in litres but equivalent to pints. Packaged bottled and canned goods are the same, kilo or gramme markings but equivalents to pounds and ounces.

It's enough to make you scream, as if shopping wasn't arduous enough. Still I shall use all this as an excuse when my Christmas cake sinks in the middle because I have put too much fruit in .

Dress sizes have mercifully been left alone - at the moment. We sell dress material in metres (except for Trago, who thanks to Mr Robertson still do yards). Sizes, however, have stayed the same. Which is just as well because having spent years pretending to be at least one size smaller I don't want to have to learn a whole new set of lies.

Talking of fashion I note that the two items which should be on your 'most wanted' list this year are going to be a pashmina and a poncho.

I hate to admit it but I'm sure it's the third time the poncho has been introduced as the latest thing in high fashion during my lifetime and it still looks like a blanket with a hole in it. Ponchos suit very small children who look cute, or Mexicans who have the hat to go with it. Anyone else should forget it - they make even the pencil slim look bulky they are awkward when you're shopping because you have o wrestle with the thing to get an arm out and when you sit down you bear a striking resemblance to a dressing table with a flounce. They are beloved of the fashion industry because they require little or no design, no skill to assemble and you don't even have to make the hem even. Also it's definitely a 'one size fits all' garment so you can run off the whole lot in an afternoon. Don't be fooled - unless you want to look like an extra from Sleeping Beauty.

Pashminas, on the other hand, are upmarket shawls. And the price is upmarket too - from £200 to £300 a throw, in both senses of the word. They are made of some very fine wool or silk or whatever but basically they are a shawl. Fashion mags have been raving about them - so versatile they say. Sling them round your shoulders, drape them artfully over one arm. Tie them round your waist.

I'm sorry to say it takes talent to wear a shawl elegantly, and I don't have it.

Slung round my waist and I'll look like the Battleship Potempkin. Artfully draped and I'll look as if I've caught it on a door. Very nice to keep the draught out when you're watching telly, but at £300 a piece I'll stick with the knitted woolly sausage thank-you.

So I'm passing on the two big fashion musts of the season - AND I'm ignoring the new dictate that bottle green is the new black this season.

Bottle green, as far as I am concerned, looks good on only one thing. A bottle.