"rickety" wrote in message
...
Steve Dulieu wrote:
snippitty-snip
Mind you, it was getting on for midnight and my brother
and I had just spent the weekend in Munich ensuring that the European
beer lake didn't get too deep, so I may not have been functioning a
peak efficiency...:-)

sounds like a good weekend!

From what I can remember, it was excellent!...;-)
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change from jealous to sad to reply.

Roland Perry typed


Indeed, I'm acting just like any UK resident does when he runs out of
cash: I go and look for an ATM. Are you suggesting that all UK residents
should have a special reserve of cash, which they never spend, just in
case they encounter one of the risks you mention. They'd laugh you out
of town!

So now you can laugh at the £20 note I keep neatly folded & hidden
behind my Oyster Card...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Roland Perry wrote:

In message , Al
writes
You are willing to spend not a penny of your cash ameliorating that risk
-- nor will apparently spend a moment of your time planning against the
day one of those risks hit.

Indeed, I'm acting just like any UK resident does when he runs out of
cash: I go and look for an ATM.

I'm afraid, Mr Perry, that you are projecting again. I venture that most
people that run out of cash look in their wallet before going to the ATM,
but perhaps you have evidence otherwise?

Are you suggesting that all UK residents
should have a special reserve of cash, which they never spend, just in
case they encounter one of the risks you mention. They'd laugh you out
of town!

Until recently, I had twenty quid in the office that I used on the frequent
occasions that the local ATMs weren't open to pay for a cab. I have another
twenty behind the biz cards in me wallet for the occasions I was out of the
office and needed a cab home. I have roughly ten quid in the car to pay for
parking. When I spent time in NY, I always flew out with a hundred quid in
the wallet for when I came back, and flew in with 'one hundred fifty' of
their funny money for when I flew out. Cost of the money was zero as I
already owned it. Cost of the time spent in each case is roughly 3 seconds.

Laugh me out of town? Perhaps you would. Just remember to wave hello on
those dark and stormy nights at Stansted as my taxi swooshes past while
you're still looking for a cashpoint!
--
Al

Annabel Smyth wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 at 17:22:50, Al wrote:

Roland Perry wrote:

I have plenty of the currency the destination country, inside a bank!

If it pleases you to think that way, then I'm not one to rain on your
parade. However, as well as the 'plenty of currency inside a bank' you
imagine you have, you also have 'plenty of risk inside a bank': that it
will be closed; ceased trading; suspended during a money-laundering bust;
have ATM phonelines down etc etc etc.

Do you keep your money under the bed, then? I rather doubt that any of
the banks here - Barclays, Abbey, Halifax, Lloyds TSB, whatever - are
going to go bust any time soon.

Nor do I expect them to. Nor did any normal soul expect BCCI to go bust,
given that the BoE had licenced them.

You are willing to spend not a penny of your cash ameliorating that risk
-- nor will apparently spend a moment of your time planning against the
day one of those risks hit.

So where do you keep your money?

I have a contract with a bank whereby I lend them my money, and they promise
to return an equivalent amount 'on demand', including at cashpoints. That
ability is rather subject to a number of exceptions -- see the small print
for details. You may well find that 'ATM not being available' is one of
those exceptions.

IN a sock under your mattress? Don't
forget the OP means he has an account in THIS country, not in some less
developed country which doesn't have such strict banking laws as we do.

Then this is even worse for Mr Perry! There is absolutely no financial cost
whatsoever to taking the pounds he may need on the way back with him at the
time he flies out, much less have to convert foreign money to GBP when he
comes to fly back.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Roland cannot look after his own
affairs, and burdens others when life goes wrong for him. With luck, he'll
meet the challenge of his personality before he reaches 18.
--
Al

In message , Al
writes
Then this is even worse for Mr Perry! There is absolutely no financial cost
whatsoever to taking the pounds he may need on the way back with him at the
time he flies out, much less have to convert foreign money to GBP when he
comes to fly back.

I'm out of the USA for months at a time. So there is some cost
associated with keeping lots of sterling with me. This was also the
first time I've used a taxi on arrival for several years - normally use
the train (but let's not get into the difficulty of buying a ticket
quickly at Gatwick station).
--
Roland Perry

In message , Helen Deborah
Vecht writes
So now you can laugh at the £20 note I keep neatly folded & hidden
behind my Oyster Card...

£20 is fine. My taxi was closer to £100.
--
Roland Perry

In message , Richard J.
writes
What happened to the UK cash that you had when you left the UK last
time? Most people retain some for their return journey.

I had perhaps £15 in notes and £5 in loose change. Meanwhile, I'm also
lugging around similar amounts in Dollars and Euros [1]. Before I left
home (which is in the USA) I checked my foreign currency and discovered
small amounts for over 20 countries (half a dozen of which are now
obsolete because of the Euro).

It's understandable for people to think that the UK's the only country
that exists (although they then accuse Americans of the same fault) but
I travel all over the world and UK money is but one of the currencies
that I have to decide whether or not to keep a stash of pending the next
trip.

The reason I post my small grumbles is because it's not often that we
hear about the UK through a tourist's eyes (we just get questions ahead
of the trips, and one answer often given is to get cash from ATMs). A
friend travelled to the UK many years ago, and had taken the precaution
of getting pounds from his bank in the USA. Unfortunately these were
green paper pounds, and it was a year after they'd been phased out here!

[1] Just in case I need to go to Brussels, and find the ATMs there are
non-functional too...

--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:

In message , Al
writes
Then this is even worse for Mr Perry! There is absolutely no financial
cost whatsoever to taking the pounds he may need on the way back with him
at the time he flies out, much less have to convert foreign money to GBP
when he comes to fly back.

I'm out of the USA for months at a time.

As was I. You'll find that currency from some months back is still usable.

So there is some cost
associated with keeping lots of sterling with me.

50 quid is lots? Perhaps you had better consider earning a living instead of
galavanting. Whatever: there is no additional cost to keeping 50 quid with
you beyond the cost imposed with keeping your passport and return ticket
with you. Except the three seconds it takes to put the dosh with the
passport, of course.

This was also the
first time I've used a taxi on arrival for several years - normally use
the train (but let's not get into the difficulty of buying a ticket
quickly at Gatwick station).

People in ULL will remember this story: I found myself in Harlem one night,
needing to get back. I had $107 with me: a $100, a $5 and two $1s. Taking a
cab back to Grand Central, with a big black bloke wider than he was tall, I
discovered a note on the back of his screen to the effect that cabbies do
not have to accept notes over $20. Now I could have done a runner, but I
generously gave him the $100 instead -- "Here, mate, put your kids through
college!"

You can do that, when you have an expense account :-D
--
Al

Roland Perry ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

So now you can laugh at the £20 note I keep neatly folded & hidden
behind my Oyster Card...

£20 is fine. My taxi was closer to £100.

Don't all black cabs now take credit cards?

In message , Al
writes
Nor do I expect them to. Nor did any normal soul expect BCCI to go bust,
given that the BoE had licenced them.

I think you'll find that the bank of England had *not* licensed them as
a Bank and had refused to do so on at least one occasion. They were a
"Licensed Deposit Taker" (I think that's the right phrase). That in
itself would have sent alarm bells wringing with me, not sure about the
rest of you.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG, Birmingham, UK
Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide for
London & the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk