Our recent declaration of the Vulture Central standards of area, length and volume proved rather popular with those among you who'd always wanted a proper system by which we might measure the universe.

So much so, that an emergency plenary sitting of the Reg Standards Soviet this week reached unanimous agreement on three further units, as follows:

Temperature

The standard unit of temperature shall be the Hilton (Hn - "That's hot"), which is defined as the amount of heat required to make an average person remove a layer of clothing. Extensive research carried out in secret [Ah, so that's what has been going on with the air-conditioning - Ed] has revealed that this is roughly ten degrees Kelvin.

For calibration purposes, zero on the Register temperature scale is the temperature at which a talented ex-jailbird heiress can be expected to be fully dressed in at least one layer of clothing. (Underpants optional, obviously.) This is set at 293K, or 20°C. Accordingly, what the rest of the world might call 0°C, we shall refer to as -2 Hiltons (Hn).

Examples:

• Pack your swimming trunks - the beaches are expected to be heaving as the temperature soars to two Hiltons.
• A lingerie expert confirmed Lindsay Lohan rarely wears knickers if the mercury hits half a Hilton.
• Doctors say that a temperature rise of as little as a quarter of a Hilton could prove fatal in those affected by the disease.

Force

The standard unit of force shall be the Norris (No), representing 100 newtons, or 10197.162129999999 grams force, 10.19716 kiloponds, 10,000,000 dynes, 723.30139 poundals, 359.69425 ounces force or 22.48091 pounds force.

Examples:

• Doctors later said Campbell's PDA had hit the maid with a force equivalent to three Norrises.
• Scientists believe an asteroid as small as five Bulgarian airbags in volume could strike the earth with a force of two million Norrises, flattening an area of 500 nanoWales.

Weight

The standard unit of weight shall be the Jub (Jb), representing the weight required to crush an Australian beer can at sea level, ie 4.2kg or 0.08267 UK short hundredweight, 7 Japanese kinn or 984.6 old Russian zolotniks. The units microJub, milliJub, kiloJub, megaJub, etc, are acceptable derivatives of the Jub.

Examples:

• Fashion show officials confirmed that models packing less than five Jubs per linguine in height were "too thin" to participate.
• The doctor claimed that his diet had allowed women to shed "thousands" of excess Jubs.
• The US insisted Iran had already stockpiled 100 kiloJubs of uranium, enough to fill three Olympic-sized swimming pools. ®

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