My Napoleon complex

I was interested this week to learn that, contrary to popular belief, Napoleon was not short. That at least is the contention of a letter writer to the Economist, who accuses the magazine of repeating the "myth" in its millennium edition.

One of the few facts I thought I knew about the Little Corporal was that he was five feet two inches in his chaussettes. But as the letter writer explains: "This misconception arose when early biographers equated French and English feet. Napoleon was five feet two inches (1.70 metres) in the French system and five feet six inches in the British, about average for his time."

Now, everybody knows that continental Europeans have traditionally used different measurements from those of us in the - pardon the French - Isles Britanniques. Indeed, on my first visit to Paris, I had a coffee on the Champs Elysees which, in the Irish system, was worth 95p but, in the French, came out at £6.50. But it had never occurred to me that there were different versions of the length of a foot.

It's obvious when you think about it, because there are wide variations in the length of a mile. The original Roman measure, from the latin mille, or 1,000 paces, was about 1,680 yards; the English mile was 1,760; the Scottish 1,980; and the Irish anything from 2,240, as visitors will know, upwards. (In fact, if Bonaparte had toured Ireland before estimating the distance to Moscow, he'd have made sure to bring enough supplies for the invasion.)

Anyway, in the sort of coincidence for which columnists are always grateful, I too received a Napoleon-related letter this week. On foot (that's an Irish foot, by the way) of a recent column about words, a J (or possibly T) Murphy from Dooradoyle wrote asking if I could highlight the misuse of the term "ordinary . . . beloved of politicians, academics, church persons, journalists, etc, etc, to describe their fellow man or woman".

Things are ordinary, "people never" writes Mr/Ms Murphy; who had assumed this to be a modern habit until hearing on Lyric FM that Beethoven revised plans to dedicate his third symphony to Napoleon, when the latter took the title emperor; upon which the composer complained that his hero was "just an ordinary man".

This we now know was true, at least in terms of size. But I take the point. The "ordinary man or woman" is a little too easily found these days - "in the street," usually. And as far as journalists are concerned, I can only plead the usual excuse for lazy language, which is pressure of deadlines. (Speaking of which, the ordinary meaning of the term "today" led us to expect your copy about 12 hours ago - Weekend Ed).

Moving quickly along; and, as we know, revolutionary France devised its own unique measuring systems, most notably the Republican calendar. This abolished Sundays, and indeed weeks, but it never really took off. Much more durable were to prove the names of some of the personalities of the time, like Dr Josephe-Ignace Guillotin (he didn't invent it, he just campaigned for its use); or Napoleon's religious affairs minister, Jean Bigot; or another Jean, the famously patriotic soldier, Chauvin.

And it seems this column was being both bigoted and chauvinistic last week when it criticised the recent arrival in Ireland's trendy coffee houses of the Americano. It was making the point that the so-named beverage is the nearest thing to an, ahem, ordinary cup of coffee now available in certain places; and that having to call it Americano was not only to acknowledge global US domination, but made you feel like you'd just hit Miami beach on a raft.

However, no less a person than Joe O'Toole has since e-mailed me to the effect that I was talking through my still-wet baseball cap.

Few people will have known this, but in between being one of Ireland's best-known senators and bestriding the Irish National Teachers Organisation like a colossus, Joe O'Toole has also pursued a lifelong quest for the perfect cup of coffee - that ideal compromise between the "macho" espresso, and the "wimpish" cappuccino - his terms. A double espresso might be the right size, as he points out, but it also carried an explosive adrenaline boost (which in his case, as anyone familiar with the INTO leader will know, could put aviation at risk).

Then one day, "in a little cafe in the shade of a cathedral off the Ramblas in Barcelona", Joe finally discovered the Holy Grail. And when the waitress explained it was an Americano - espresso-based but with twice the water - he returned to Ireland and began a long, futile search for the product locally.

Finally, two years ago, he gave up asking. "And then, out of the blue and with no encouragement from me, Dublin coffee houses started putting it on their menus. So, after waiting this long, and having campaigned for it, it really is The Last Straw to have its availability ridiculed in your column. Encourage them, for God's sake!"

In the light of all this (and thanks also to Anne Kernan, who emailed from California about her happy discovery of the Americano, in Milan), I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the cafes in question; while still insisting that the beverage be renamed to be less alienating to the ethnically-sensitive.

I have no idea who invented the Americano but, hey, who now knows that Antoine Louis invented the guillotine? And that's why, next time I visit my local trendy cafe, I'm hoping to start a trend. I'm going to ask for a Joe O'Toole.