adric | Money

In which I resist the urge no longer, and pen an extended screed on
the subject of finance...

The exchange rate sucks!

More clearly, the value of British money in comparision to U.S. money
is quite pronounced. Earlier this week, I cashed $100 worth of AmEx
traveller's cheques at an AmEx office and received 63 GBP and some
60 p of small change. Again, that's:

100_USA = 63_UK

The result is that things that seem inexpensive here are priced about
right compared to home (Atlant@), things that seem reasonable are by
local standards at home, a little steep here, and the expensive things,
such as in the tourist traps, are obscenely expensive. Here are some
more examples to help support the point that prices seem reasonable here
as long as (much like the stern admonition given you by language
teachers) you don't translate:

Item	GBP	local value	USD	well?
RSC cap	5.25	seems cheap	8.82	fluke?
The Economist	2.80	okay	4.70	ouch
hot dog (Colin)	1.50	seems cheap	2.52	stadium
Blenheim water	1.25	um, er	2.10	theft
print a page of A4	0.06	seems okay	0.10	ouch
a Coke (newstand)	1.00	seems okay	1.68	stadium
busfare to ASDA	0.70	seems okay	1.18	ow, for a 30 min walk
sacklunch	3.00	seems okay	5.04	a lot for a kid's lunch

The money itself is different, of course. The bills are slightly larger and are
printed in many colours. Each includes a portrait of HRH, and a figure
of historical significance (this 10 GBP note has Charles Dickens and a scene from
Pickwick Papers). The notes are quite pretty just to look at and have at least
as many anti-counterfeit features as U.S. currency (I suspect they have more.) So, the
bills are lovely. It's the coins that are troublesome, mostly as there are so many of
them. The denominations I have had are 20 (bill), 10 (bill), 5 (bill), 2 (coin), 1
(coin), and then 50,20,10,5,2, and 1 (all coins). The coins seem mostly to get smaller
as they get more valuable, but that theory quickly breaks down with application. Here
they are in order of size, largest first: 2 P, 50 p, 2 p, 10 p, 1 P, 20 p, 1 p, 5 p.
The pound is quite the same size as the 20 p, although much thicker and rounder. The 2
pound coins are quite nice, having two colors of metal (one as a ring around the other).
The tu'pence and the halfpound are each about 1 inch in diameter, although the 50p is
septoganal (7 sided ?! ) and the tupence round. I'll measure a two pounder when next I
get one.

adric, roehampton.ac.uk, 20:15 , 5 July 2002

music: Floyd (duh)