Chris Cockbill's Double Decker Bus Calculator is a fabulous aid to hyperbole.
Ever read in a newspaper that something is "the length of twenty double-decker buses", or that a country is "twice the size of Wales", and wondered exactly how big that is? Further, have you ever wondered how many football pitches there are to a Manhattan Island, or how many Nelson Columns it would take to get to the Moon and back?
Based on measurements published in Wikipedia and other sources, The Double Decker Bus Calculator allows you to convert between standard and strange units of measurement.
The notes section includes this splendid bit of pedantry: "the measurement of the Statue of Liberty is without that of its pedestal, while Nelson's Column includes the column height. While apparently contradictory, this is because the name "Statue of Liberty" refers to the statue itself (and not the pedestal), whereas the name "Nelson's Column" includes the column."
Via Seamus McCauley's Virtual Economics.
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