“I’ll have ‘War’ please Jim...”

Hands are being gleefully rubbed in the Ministry of Defence this week as it was confirmed that two spanking new aircraft carriers are to be built at enormous cost. Firms including Corus in Scunthorpe, and MacTaggart Scott & Co. in Mid Lothian (I defy anyone to think of a more Scottish sounding name) will bag over £91m to Airfix them together.

In order to convey the magnitude of such enormous and costly vessels, the BBC 6 O'clock News, using a topical comparison, showed their size in terms of tennis courts, illustrated by a natty graphic depicting aircraft carriers covered in prime Wimbledon turf complete with chalk markings. The correspondent helpfully informed the viewer that the deck surface of these immense warships is equivalent to 104 such courts.

While topical, this was slightly confusing. As my lovely wife pointed out, everyone knows that dimensions of large objects are measured in football pitches, not tennis courts, and as such, they would each be as big as four football pitches. It’s just as well the there was no major boxing bout over the weekend or they may have been illustrated in terms of 450 boxing rings. Alternatively, 753 snooker tables or even (using a little schoolboy geometry and the formula piR2 to determine surface area) 119,439 dartboards, though laid end-to-end, this amounts to no more than 93,700.

Come to think about it, a giant dartboard might be of benefit in helping planes to land, with points awarded for ‘Bullseye’ accuracy. Pilots could be encouraged to “listen to Tony” in the control tower, with prizes such as caravans and speedboats awarded for exemplary landings. Overshooting the runway, however, would result in them receiving nothing more than their PFH (plane fare home).