In a recent piece on red-giant star Mira, we rather foolishly suggested that the "comet-tailed" body was travelling across the heavens at roughly 150,000 times the speed of the average sheep.

This rash assertion provoked many readers to demand the maximum velocity of a sheep and, more to the point, the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum.

Furthermore, the question of Wales has of late been worrying our readership. Or rather, just how big is Wales and how does it measure up to other classic yardsticks of surface area including the time-honoured football pitch? And, indeed, just how big is Wales in cubic furlongs?

Accordingly, the Vulture Central Weights and Measures Soviet immediately set out to define once-and-for-all a set of agreed standards to which all future quantities would be subject.

Here, then, are the results:

Volume

The base unit of volume shall be the EU standard (5cm radius) grapefruit, defined as 1gf, representing 523.6cc, 4.426 US gills, 0.0144 UK bushels, 0.5236 Chinese Imperial sheng, or 0.9625 Ancient Roman sextaria.

For volumes lesser or greater than 1gf, the following should be used:

• Walnut = 0.16gf
• Chicken's egg = 0.35gf
• Bulgarian airbag (C-cup Posh Spice - allegedly) = 1.1gf
• Bulgarian funbag (DD-cup Jordan) = 3.27gf
• Football = 11.07gf
• Olympic-sized swimming pool = 4,780,114gf
• Known universe = 117,456,206x10⁴⁹²⁵gf

Examples:

• When they cut the poor bloke open, they found a tumour the size of a chicken's egg.
• As he revved the Harley, he felt the raw energy of the four-Bulgarian-funbag powerplant throbbing between his legs.
• Experts calculate that Bills Gates' wealth in $1m bills would fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Length

The standard unit of length shall be the EU standard (Florentine) linguine (unboiled at sea level), defined as 1lg, representing 14cm, 0.02784 perches, 0.462 Japanese shyaku or 0.0007568 Ancient Greek stadium ptolemys

For greater than 1lg, the following should be used:

• Double-decker bus = 65.85lg
• Brontosaurus = 15 double-decker buses laid bumper-to-bumper
• Length across known universe at shortest point = 136 trillion brontosauruses laid nose-to-tail

Examples

• Paleontologists suggest that while vicious predator Ballmersaurus rex measured three double-decker buses from nose to tail, his brain was no bigger than a walnut.
• Imagine Paris Hilton's dismay when she whipped open the prisoner warder's flies to find he was only packing a half-linguine.

Important exception

The distance travelled by a tantrum-driven flying PDA shall be defined in Campbells (1cB=231lg). Example: "Yeah, I asked that Foxy Brown to turn her car stereo down and she only went and threw her bleedin' Blackberry about three Campbells."