Greetings From The UK
Measuring Up To An Englishman
A light hearted look at the arrogant English
A light hearted look at the arrogant English
English currency was made up of Pounds, Shillings & Pence, a very simple currency system as I shall explain. Following the demise of the Viking Farthing, we had a small coin called a half penny to which there were 480 to the Pound. 12 pennies made a shilling & 12 half pennies were known as a sixpence.
We had three penny bits, florins, and half crowns which were 2 shillings & sixpence. A crown was 5 bob & the smallest paper note was 10 bob, two of which made a pound. There was only one peculiar exception, that of a guinea, this was 21 shillings allowing the auctioneer to make his 5 % commission by paying the customer in pounds.
Slide rules & pocket calculators could not handle such a simple system, having been designed to make life easier by calculating complex foreign currency. We did not mind and understood that the foreigners needed all the help that they could get. Generations of children learnt the system at school without much effort as the incentive was obvious.
In those days we knew the value of our money. We could take the girl out on a Friday night, 4 pints of beer, 2 seats in the cinema, fish, chips and peas, and a ride home in the taxi left change out of a half crown.
The value was such that the largest paper in very limited circulation was a five pound note. So rare that it was virtually a blank piece of paper, the logic being that we did not need to print fancy patterns on it, as if you ever owned one, you obviously knew and trusted everyone else who owned one. Almost a club you might say. (Clubs, another English obsession)
Then we are told that we are to go metric and must use a foreign system called Metrification, Well we cannot even spell it let alone understand it.
Education standards have fell as students spend too much time trying to work out how to use the pocket calculator.
The smallest coin is now a penny, which is 4.8 times larger than the old half penny. So any price increase is 48% larger than it otherwise might have been. The smallest paper is now a five pound note and will not even pay for the Taxi so we cannot afford the girl. The largest note is £50 with a computerised multi-coloured pattern, watermarks and integral metal strips, but we cannot use these as most are forged
An old lady recently said "In the old days, Foreigners did not understand our money and we were much better off"
Why all this confusion you may well ask, well consider perhaps God is a Woman
Not a lot of people knows that.... as Michael Caine would say
No wonder that we lost an empire
We had three penny bits, florins, and half crowns which were 2 shillings & sixpence. A crown was 5 bob & the smallest paper note was 10 bob, two of which made a pound. There was only one peculiar exception, that of a guinea, this was 21 shillings allowing the auctioneer to make his 5 % commission by paying the customer in pounds.
Slide rules & pocket calculators could not handle such a simple system, having been designed to make life easier by calculating complex foreign currency. We did not mind and understood that the foreigners needed all the help that they could get. Generations of children learnt the system at school without much effort as the incentive was obvious.
In those days we knew the value of our money. We could take the girl out on a Friday night, 4 pints of beer, 2 seats in the cinema, fish, chips and peas, and a ride home in the taxi left change out of a half crown.
The value was such that the largest paper in very limited circulation was a five pound note. So rare that it was virtually a blank piece of paper, the logic being that we did not need to print fancy patterns on it, as if you ever owned one, you obviously knew and trusted everyone else who owned one. Almost a club you might say. (Clubs, another English obsession)
Then we are told that we are to go metric and must use a foreign system called Metrification, Well we cannot even spell it let alone understand it.
Education standards have fell as students spend too much time trying to work out how to use the pocket calculator.
The smallest coin is now a penny, which is 4.8 times larger than the old half penny. So any price increase is 48% larger than it otherwise might have been. The smallest paper is now a five pound note and will not even pay for the Taxi so we cannot afford the girl. The largest note is £50 with a computerised multi-coloured pattern, watermarks and integral metal strips, but we cannot use these as most are forged
An old lady recently said "In the old days, Foreigners did not understand our money and we were much better off"
Why all this confusion you may well ask, well consider perhaps God is a Woman
Not a lot of people knows that.... as Michael Caine would say
No wonder that we lost an empire
Simply Steve
