2p or not 2p? - do we need coppers?
Yesterday I found a lucky penny on the bus. Later, Manchester United beat Arsenal. Connected, I think!
We currently have a box full of loose change, from pennies to 20ps, just waiting to be taken to a supermarket with a sorting machine.
Coins that are left lying around, generally on the sofa, generally fallen from male trousers, are added to the coin pile.
Do we need pennies and tuppences? When ha'pennies were abolished, we knew there would be inflation - all the prices at Superdrug had previously been in ha'pennies. It's relatively rare that shops price things at £x.99 now, although yesterday's ready meals from M&S were 3.49 each and the custard slices £1.29. Paying by card, the oddness of the total didn't strike me. Abolishing the penny would penalise the cash shopper. Perhaps shops would far prefer not to have the cash shopper, avoiding the costs of banking. In Jimmy's cafe everything is priced at round tens. Saves having to have a float of lesser coins. Even back in 87 I worked in pubs where pints were in round tens and halves all ended in five. It made the mental addition easier. (Yes, I know the till adds it up, but think, in a pub, when busy, when you order just two or three drinks, isn't it better that when the bar staff tells you the total as she hands you the final drink, and you get out the money, and while she's away at the till you can be faffing around, instead of waiting for her to make two trips to the till. Trust me, as a former bar staff with excellent mental arithmetic, I serve more quickly than someone who can't add a lager top to a Bacardi Breezer).
I remember when pound coins came in. There was outcry. Purses were made with pound coin slots. You could even get little gadgets to hold the pound coins. Just yesterday, my purchase in Boots came to £5.18, so I handed a ten pound note and a twenty pence piece. the sales assistant apologised for the lack of fivers as he handed me five pound coins. Sometimes I quip back - it gets spent just as quick. I don't bother so much nowadays. People don't get my sense of humour.
Do they still have dollar bills in the US? Am I alone in hating US notes for their identicality regardless of denomination?
Elgar's on the twenty. Who's on the others? I have none on me. Isaac Newton, Elizabeth Fry, Frankie Howerd, George Stephenson, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin? Has there ever been a sports person on a note? Who should the first one be? Is Elizabeth Fry the only woman (apart from the Queens) who has been on a note? Does the longevity of Queens excuse the gender bias? Do you realise that in time we'll have Charlie's ears on our notes, coins and stamps?
