occasional musings on politics, culture and life in general from an american in exile
15 February 2008
Today in infamy - "that comes to a guinea, a farthing and one of those funny looking little things" edition
On this day in 1971 the United Kingdom quite sensibly adopted decimal currency. I am just thankful that I never came to Britain before then! (Who ever thought 240 was logical number of pence in a pound?)
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
I don't know. I'm a big fan of the metric system, and think its adoption in Britain is long overdue, but I think the old currency had a unique charm, and it helped to keep the riff-raff out (and probably provided a great deal of extra income to shopowners who took advantage of tourists).
And as far as the 240 pence to the pound, it's that base 12 thing, doncha know: easily divisible by many numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, etc.). Easier to do the fractions before calculators were invented.
1 comment:
I don't know. I'm a big fan of the metric system, and think its adoption in Britain is long overdue, but I think the old currency had a unique charm, and it helped to keep the riff-raff out (and probably provided a great deal of extra income to shopowners who took advantage of tourists).
And as far as the 240 pence to the pound, it's that base 12 thing, doncha know: easily divisible by many numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, etc.). Easier to do the fractions before calculators were invented.
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