In article
,
(Peter T. Daniels) wrote:

In 1992 I bought some pound notes in Northern Ireland, because I would
be staying a few days in London after my speaking engagement in
Dublin. I was surprised to read on them that they were specifically
Northern Ireland currency, even though the were issued by the Bank of
England and legal tender throughout the United Kingdom (they said.)
The clerk ("shop assistant") in the British Museum bookstore had to
call the manager before she would believe it was real money. I managed
to find a bank branch and exchange them for "real money" later that
day, so that I could spend far too much at Blackwell's in Oxford on
Saturday. (I went up to Cambridge on Sunday; I think the stores
("shops") were closed, except for a touristy establishment where the
clerk thought it odd that I wanted to buy a postcard with the arms of
all the colleges, like the one I had gotten in ("at"?) Oxford. Perhaps
the Cambridge colleges don't get along as well as the Oxford colleges?

Northern Ireland notes, like Scottish ones, are issued by local banks, not
by the Bank of England so they are not legal tender. Only Bank of England
notes have that status anywhere in the UK. You'd find Sunday very different
here these days. it's the second busiest shopping day of the week now,
despite the shorter opening hours, mainly 11-5 here.

(I also liked the fusty old Ashmolean better than the newly modernized
Fitzwilliam, but the Ashmolean has now been renovated as well so it
probably resembles every other museum in the world.)

There is still plenty of traditional museum at the Fitzwilliam!

Organ scholars practicing ("practising") in every Oxford college
chapel, vs. Evensong at King's College ... hmm ... (I missed the
"opening hours" of the Bodleian on Saturday, because I took a bus that
got caught in traffic, so on Sunday I took the train to Cambridge --
but that meant I had to sit in the narthex of St. John's College
Chapel for _their_ evensong because I'd have to leave in the middle to
catch the last(?) train down(?) to London.

The last train would have been _up_ to London. Trains normally run up to
London and down from London in this country, though there are exceptions.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

"Phil Kane" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:03:35 +0000, "
wrote:

They haven't used pre-decimal coins here since the early '70s.

In the 10 days that I spent in London in 1967 I had almost figured out
the British monetary system including the localisms, now mostly
forgotten. Do the kids growing up there recognize that at all?

If you are familiar with these generational categories, a rough guide is
that baby boomers (born between WWII and around 1960-1964) who grew up in
the UK will have learned pe-decimal currency at primary school, while
members of generation X (born from 1960-1964 until around 1980) won't.

Martin

In message , at 04:05:21 on Thu, 29 Dec
2011, remarked:
so on Sunday I took the train to Cambridge --
but that meant I had to sit in the narthex of St. John's College
Chapel for _their_ evensong because I'd have to leave in the middle to
catch the last(?) train down(?) to London.

The last train would have been _up_ to London. Trains normally run up to
London and down from London in this country, though there are exceptions.

Yerse... but students "go up" to Cambridge, and are "sent down" to London (etc).

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dict...ritish/go-up_5

As a Cambridge resident, I think I might talk about "going down to London", simply
because it's to the south.
--
Roland Perry

On 28/12/11 23:24, wrote:
On 28/12/2011 19:07, Phil Kane wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:03:35 +0000, "
wrote:

They haven't used pre-decimal coins here since the early '70s.

In the 10 days that I spent in London in 1967 I had almost figured out
the British monetary system including the localisms, now mostly
forgotten. Do the kids growing up there recognize that at all?
--

A system that hasn't been in use in over 40 years? No.

They might just understand "Bob" I suppose.

The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old units
of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too well.
Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30 years, and
people of all ages are still familiar with them.

Richard.

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 04:05:21 on
Thu, 29 Dec 2011, remarked:
so on Sunday I took the train to Cambridge --
but that meant I had to sit in the narthex of St. John's College
Chapel for _their_ evensong because I'd have to leave in the middle to
catch the last(?) train down(?) to London.

The last train would have been _up_ to London. Trains normally run up to
London and down from London in this country, though there are exceptions.

Yerse... but students "go up" to Cambridge, and are "sent down" to
London (etc).

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dict...ritish/go-up_5

As a Cambridge resident, I think I might talk about "going down to
London", simply because it's to the south.

It's just you being contrary as usual, though. Happy New Year!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Roland Perry wrote

It's quite unusual to get a £2 coin in manual change, but London
Underground ticket machines churn them out.

Happens all the time in Lidl, Aldi, 99p stores - they seem to give
change on a "minimum number of coins" basis so the same for 20p and 10p

Since my launderette only takes £1 coins I occasionally have to ask for
4 x £1 rather than 2 x £2


--
Mike D

In article ,
(Richard Roberts) wrote:

On 28/12/11 23:24, wrote:
On 28/12/2011 19:07, Phil Kane wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:03:35 +0000, "
wrote:

They haven't used pre-decimal coins here since the early '70s.

In the 10 days that I spent in London in 1967 I had almost figured out
the British monetary system including the localisms, now mostly
forgotten. Do the kids growing up there recognize that at all?

A system that hasn't been in use in over 40 years? No.

They might just understand "Bob" I suppose.

The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old
units of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too
well. Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30
years, and people of all ages are still familiar with them.

The UK government has been (half-heartedly) trying to remove old units of
measurement for over a century. In some fields Imperial units haven't been
used for decades. When did you last see a car engine capacity in this
country expressed in cubic inches, for example? In other areas progress
stopped years ago.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Richard Roberts wrote:

The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old units
of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too well.
Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30 years, and
people of all ages are still familiar with them.

And then there are things that are priced by weight and sold by unit... I was in
a Devon Tesco this past summer at the deli counter and wanted to purchase a
small amount of sliced ham. In the US I'd ask for a 1/4 pound. The price tag on
the ham listed the price in metric units and then helpfully listed the
equivilent price in imperial weight. I asked for about 100 grams. The clerk
responded, "so you want 3 or 4 slices then?"

On Dec 29, 10:51*am, Robert Neville wrote:
Richard Roberts wrote:
The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old units
of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too well.
Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30 years, and
people of all ages are still familiar with them.

And then there are things that are priced by weight and sold by unit... I was in
a Devon Tesco this past summer at the deli counter and wanted to purchase a
small amount of sliced ham. In the US I'd ask for a 1/4 pound. The price tag on
the ham listed the price in metric units and then helpfully listed the
equivilent price in imperial weight. I asked for about 100 grams. The clerk
responded, "so you want 3 or 4 slices then?"

But maybe their slices are very different in thickness than ours! 4
oz. might be two sandwiches, which could be 8 slices of the very thin
kind favored these days.

"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

But maybe their slices are very different in thickness than ours! 4
oz. might be two sandwiches, which could be 8 slices of the very thin
kind favored these days.

The final price was based on weight. I just thought it was amusing that the
clerk asked for the number of slices. They were indeed quite thick.