Hive Mind! Explain your crazy old pre-decimal currency (again)!

[vzzbux]

And it will all change again if Labour get their way with the Euro.






V

[Dandontdare]

An American lady tourist arriving at Heathrow once asked me, in all seriousness, how many shillings there were in a pound, so I very helpfully explained it all to her until she'd got it down pat. Was it very naughty of me not to mention they'd been abolished some decades earlier?

My excuse is that I was returning from a year at a Midwestern college, where I had had to explain on an almost daily basis that East Berlin wasn't in Russia, that England was attached to Scotland but not to Ireland and that none of them were attached to the rest of Europe, that England consisted of more than foggy-London-plus-a-few-quaint-villages and other strange ideas. People would actually ARGUE these points with me as if I didn't even know where I came from!

[Bouwel]

I had an American visit a few years back. Before he turned up he asked if the water was safe to drink and could he buy batteries for his little radio. Despite being amazed that you could buy tourist guides to Cuba he didn't realise that it was just off the coast of Florida (I think he thought it was mid-Atlantic).

Lots of fun!

-Bouwel-

[The Legendary Shark]

I used to drive a mini-bus for an airport service and one day I had but one passenger to bring home, an American in a silly suit with too many bags. He was my only passenger.

It was around 5am on a lovely summer morning as I eased the Transit onto the motorway. The skies were clear and the sun was just risen, clean and fresh in the sky. There was nothing else on the motorway and we must've been traveling for a good couple of minutes before seeing another vehicle, which turned out to be a lorry in a rush. The lorry thundered past, as lorries were wont to do in the days before speed limiters, and the American in the silly suit screamed and grabbed my shoulders. Thinking he was having a heart attack, I slowed and looked for the nearest Hard Shoulder SOS phone.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"That crazy guy just overtook you on the inside!" he wailed.

"This isn't like America, you know," I said, "We don't HAVE to drive on the right if we don't want to. It's all down to personal choice."

"Ah," he said, relaxing somewhat, "I understand."

During the journey home I watched his face in the mirror as it ever so slowly changed from a contented grin to a thunderous scowl as the foolishness of my explanation dawned on him.

He didn't leave a tip.

[Proudhuff]

A White fiver? Isn't that's what GRennie keeps trying to buy beer with? 

[Peter Wolf]

And it will all change again if Labour get their way with the Euro.






V

MandelSlime is trying to push that one through  but i dont think it will happen myself as from what i have heard certain forces within the establishment wont let it happen.

[Mike Gloady]

Bloody ridiculous currency - can't think why we kept it so long.  Now, seeing as we were SO brave on the day of decimalisation let's go the next step - let's go metric.  We've only been teaching it in schools since the 50s.  Grasp the nettle, Britons!

GRASP IT!

Otherwise the Rebellion's struggle will have been for nothing if Vader's system is allowed to endure.

[I, Cosh]

Bloody ridiculous currency - can't think why we kept it so long. 

Because 12 has more factors than 10 so there are more logical sub-divisions.

We should think ourselves lucky, the rupee used to be base 16.

[Mike Gloady]

Base 16?  Ker-ist!

Surely the only subdivision we really need is 100?  Pounds and pence, that's the way!