Prev: home loan
Next: home loan
From: Ian Jackson on
In message <qcm9461079seece6c7t4jfqap3pmnmss9a(a)4ax.com>,
damduck-egg(a)yahoo.co.uk writes
>On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:56:03 +0100, "Mortimer" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote:
>
>>"Graham Harrison" <edward.harrison1(a)remove.btinternet.com> wrote in message
>>news:ksadnf00LtcDPNnRnZ2dnUVZ8rGdnZ2d(a)bt.com...
>>> Good God man, you'll want to get rid of the (monetary) Pound next.
>>
>>No. The pound is now correctly divided into 100 pence. It was a different
>>matter when it was divided into 240 pence ie 20 shillings each of 12 pence:
>>I'm glad we got rid of that.
>
>Decimalization of the currency was going to be a lot earlier, someway
>back in Victorian times. Many who are old enough to remember the
>Florin or two shilling piece never realised it was introduced as part
>of that scheme. Ten of them to the Pound. As it turned the idea was
>dropped leaving the coin as something of an orphan .
>
It's a pity that we didn't go the way that Australia and New Zealand
went - and adopt the 10/- as the new dollar-pound (or whatever). This
might have stopped lots of the lower-priced items virtually doubling in
price in six months. [For example, I remember that a bottle of tomato
sauce rapidly rose from 1s/3d (just under 7p) to around 12 or 13p -
nearly twice the price.]

All the existing coins could have remained in circulation, with only a
relatively minor revaluation of the real value of the coinage. The
change would be a revaluation of 20% with respect to the dollar, but
that could be either + or -, depending on whether you were paying, or
getting change.

Ten shillings to the dollar-pound.
Ten penny coins to the shilling.
Sixpenny coin is now worth 5 pence.
Half crown worth 25 pence instead of 30.
Florin (if retained) worth 20 pence instead of 24.
Threepenny bit (worth 2.5 pence) probably no longer used.

Unless you had large amounts of coins stashed away in your piggy-bank,
you would be hardly affected by the decimalisation.
--
Ian
From: Derek C on
On Jul 19, 2:25 pm, NKTB <north_korean_tourist_bo...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> From watching various TV traffic cops type shows from various parts of
> the Commonwealth, I notice that they all now use kilometres for
> distances, and obviously kph for speed (and presumably km/Litre for
> fuel consumption hopefully not the dreadful Litres/100km used on the
> continent.
>
> I know the British people are a bit stick-in-the-mud, and don't like
> all these nasty foreign weights and measures, but British people,
> albeit in foreign parts (Aussies, Canucks, Enzedders etc) seem to have
> happily adopted these measures, no doubt with some resistance from the
> elder and more conservative of their number.  The Irish, who are
> probably our closest neighbours culturally now, have long since gone
> metric.
>
> OK, we still buy milk in pints (multiples of 568ml), some food in
> pounds (multiples of 454gm) but we are, to all intents and purposes,
> fully metricated in the food area.  We have for a long time used
> celsius temperatures, and anyone who works in science or engineering,
> as I do, will have used metric (MKS) units since I don't know when.
>
> Are the PTB scared of an almighty backlash if we go the final mile
> (pun intended) and chuck the antiquated measurement into the long
> grass?  It would seem so.  Is it just the expense of changing all
> those road signs - I guess the current economic climate won't help.
>
> How long can we go on having a hybrid, half-arsed system of distance
> measurement?  At least the yanks have kept all the other imperial
> measures.  I'm thinking that KPH is a just a change too far.


The Yanks have smaller gallons than the Brits by a factor of about
20%. Hence their huge gas-guzzling SUVs can do even fewer miles to the
gallon!
From: GT on
"Mortimer" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote in message
news:yPSdnaWLOsN0MNnRnZ2dnUVZ7tudnZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk...
> "Graham Harrison" <edward.harrison1(a)remove.btinternet.com> wrote in
> message news:ksadnf00LtcDPNnRnZ2dnUVZ8rGdnZ2d(a)bt.com...
>> Good God man, you'll want to get rid of the (monetary) Pound next.
>
> No. The pound is now correctly divided into 100 pence. It was a different
> matter when it was divided into 240 pence ie 20 shillings each of 12
> pence: I'm glad we got rid of that.

So when do we move to a 10 day week and when do we drop July and August to
leave 10 months again. The question is should there be 100 or 10 hours in a
day?

Not everything needs to be in multiples of 10!


From: GT on
"Derek C" <del.copeland(a)tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0f3a7253-dde5-43ba-9412-58940244cc6f(a)f6g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
On Jul 19, 2:25 pm, NKTB <north_korean_tourist_bo...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> From watching various TV traffic cops type shows from various parts of
> the Commonwealth, I notice that they all now use kilometres for
> distances, and obviously kph for speed (and presumably km/Litre for
> fuel consumption hopefully not the dreadful Litres/100km used on the
> continent.
>
> I know the British people are a bit stick-in-the-mud, and don't like
> all these nasty foreign weights and measures, but British people,
> albeit in foreign parts (Aussies, Canucks, Enzedders etc) seem to have
> happily adopted these measures, no doubt with some resistance from the
> elder and more conservative of their number. The Irish, who are
> probably our closest neighbours culturally now, have long since gone
> metric.
>
> OK, we still buy milk in pints (multiples of 568ml), some food in
> pounds (multiples of 454gm) but we are, to all intents and purposes,
> fully metricated in the food area. We have for a long time used
> celsius temperatures, and anyone who works in science or engineering,
> as I do, will have used metric (MKS) units since I don't know when.
>
> Are the PTB scared of an almighty backlash if we go the final mile
> (pun intended) and chuck the antiquated measurement into the long
> grass? It would seem so. Is it just the expense of changing all
> those road signs - I guess the current economic climate won't help.
>
> How long can we go on having a hybrid, half-arsed system of distance
> measurement? At least the yanks have kept all the other imperial
> measures. I'm thinking that KPH is a just a change too far.


The Yanks have smaller gallons than the Brits by a factor of about
20%. Hence their huge gas-guzzling SUVs can do even fewer miles to the
gallon!

Their gallon must be significantly smaller than our - they can fit 10
gallons in a cowboy hat!


From: GT on
"Ed Chilada" <nospam(a)nospam.com> wrote in message
news:6vk9469j0uji2nqolgn8ckr1k283nas9jv(a)4ax.com...
> On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 06:25:53 -0700 (PDT), NKTB
> <north_korean_tourist_board(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>From watching various TV traffic cops type shows from various parts of
>>the Commonwealth, I notice that they all now use kilometres for
>>distances, and obviously kph for speed (and presumably km/Litre for
>>fuel consumption hopefully not the dreadful Litres/100km used on the
>>continent.
>>
>>I know the British people are a bit stick-in-the-mud, and don't like
>>all these nasty foreign weights and measures, but British people,
>>albeit in foreign parts (Aussies, Canucks, Enzedders etc) seem to have
>>happily adopted these measures, no doubt with some resistance from the
>>elder and more conservative of their number. The Irish, who are
>>probably our closest neighbours culturally now, have long since gone
>>metric.
>
> It's because a mile is longer than a kilometer. If all roads were
> converted to kilometers they would cease to be long enough to get to
> where they currently go.

And we'd all get there quicker!


First  |  Prev  |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Prev: home loan
Next: home loan