On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:57:20 +0000, "
wrote:
On 29/12/2011 00:19, Bruce wrote:
Jim [wake wrote:
Scottish banknotes have been at par for well over 40 years
[originally
they were discounted at sixpence in the pound] but even now many
smaller
shops don't accept them, probably because of unfamiliarity.


The more likely reason is that some of the banks in England will not
accept them. I believe that some banks won't accept them at all because
they are not considered legal tender.

Really? My bank accepts them at least for deposit.


Some do, others don't. There is no list of banks that accept Scottish
notes, nor of those that don't.


My bank will also accept notes from Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man
and the Channel Islands. It won't accept any notes from Gibraltar, St.
Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha and the Falkland Islands, however.

Most won't take them unless they are bundled separately from notes
issued by the Bank of England

That makes sense, though my bank does not charge retail customers.


If you read the paragraph below, I mentioned that. Business accounts
are very different; when personal bank accounts were made mostly free
of bank charges, business account charges went up to compensate. The
banks had to recover the lost income from somewhere. :-(


Personal (as distinct from business) customers may find that their bank
will accept Scottish notes out of goodwill, but the best way to get rid
of them is to take them to a Post Office. You may get a less than
enthusiastic reception, because accounting for Scottish notes has to be
done separately and is something of a chore, but all Post Offices are
expected to take them.

Interesting to know.

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:52:10 +0000, "
wrote:

It is not uncommon to see fruit hawkers at markets sell fruit on the
premise: "A pound of weight for a pound sterling."

"A pint's a pound the world around..."

People are still weighed in stone, with 1 stone equalling 14 pounds.

Those of us who survived engineering school in the 1950s (even in "the
colonies") can still resonate with the stone-furlong-fortnight system
of units.
--

Phil Kane - Beaverton, OR
PNW Beburg MP 28.0 - OE District

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
15:11:30 on Thu, 29 Dec 2011, remarked:
People are still weighed in stone, with 1 stone equalling 14 pounds.

It depends where you're looking. The NHS has been into kilos since at
least when my elder daughter was born in 1986.

I don't recall ever having domestic scales in stone (always pounds),
but perhaps those huge coin-in-the-slot ones in public places were
stones and pounds. The growth charts my children had in the early
90's (they were weighed regularly and the results put in a little red
folder) from the NHS were bi-lingual, in both Kg and Lbs.

I have never yet seen a pounds only scale for weighing people in the UK.

An electronic "bathroom scales" we bought recently for home use shows either
kilos or stones and pounds. The scales where I get weighed regularly at
Addenbrookes only shows kilos.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Phil Kane) wrote:

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:52:10 +0000, "
wrote:

People are still weighed in stone, with 1 stone equalling 14 pounds.

Those of us who survived engineering school in the 1950s (even in "the
colonies") can still resonate with the stone-furlong-fortnight system
of units.

In my day (1968-72) it was the ton-furlong-fortnight system. Much more
balanced.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 16:03:31 on
Thu, 29 Dec 2011, Robert Neville remarked:
Sorry - I should have made it clear - the ham was presliced, with pricing in
metric and imperial units by weight. I assumed as it was priced by weight that
it would be sold by weight and that my stating "approximately" 100g would have
been sufficient for the server to work out how many slices that would equate to.
Later I noticed that other customers were asking for sliced lunchmeats by the
slice count as well - so it must be a local custom.

Most people make a sandwich by counting the number of slices of meat.
It's generally not paper-thin or wrinkled up, like many USA-ian sliced
meat is sold.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 19:17:28
on Thu, 29 Dec 2011, remarked:
People are still weighed in stone, with 1 stone equalling 14 pounds.

It depends where you're looking. The NHS has been into kilos since at
least when my elder daughter was born in 1986.

I don't recall ever having domestic scales in stone (always pounds),
but perhaps those huge coin-in-the-slot ones in public places were
stones and pounds. The growth charts my children had in the early
90's (they were weighed regularly and the results put in a little red
folder) from the NHS were bi-lingual, in both Kg and Lbs.

I have never yet seen a pounds only scale for weighing people in the UK.

I think we had some USA-made bathroom scales which were pounds-only, but
the current ones are switchable to Kilos as well.

An electronic "bathroom scales" we bought recently for home use shows either
kilos or stones and pounds. The scales where I get weighed regularly at
Addenbrookes only shows kilos.

Often there's a conversion chart on the wall so they can tell oldies
what their "real" weight is.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 17:04:22 on
Thu, 29 Dec 2011, Phil Kane remarked:
It is not uncommon to see fruit hawkers at markets sell fruit on the
premise: "A pound of weight for a pound sterling."

"A pint's a pound the world around..."

I remember buying shrimps by the pint.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:04:13 +0000, wrote:

On 28/12/2011 02:29, Bruce wrote:

Apparently several Euro zone countries - including Germany - have now
completed the printing of sufficient banknotes in their own currencies
to be able to cope when/if the Euro fails.

I just heard that yesterday.

Where? I can only find references on conspiracy sites.

--
jhk

wrote in
:

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.


Which brings to mind Dr Spooner's famous saying about the Town Drain

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.)

"Legal tender" is one of the most misunderstood concepts going. It does
*not* specify which coins & notes must and must not be accepted by
retailers. It merely applies to the repayment of debts - if a debtor offers
payment in legal tender the creditor cannot *refuse* it without
relinquishing the debt. (A semi-practical example is of tax & fee protestors
eventually repaying with wheelbarrow loads of pound coins as a final gesture
of defiance.)

Retailers are free to accept and reject whatever notes and coins they like.
Examples include:

* A lot of shops don't accept the £50 note whilst some others will only
accept it above a minimum purchase
* A number in tourist areas and airports will accept major international
currencies but with varying policies on precisely which ones and how high a
denomination
* A lot of shops in Northern Ireland accept the Euro to attract crossborder
traffic from the Republic

....and when particular note & coins have been phased out some shops have
been more willing to accept them past the official withdrawal date than
others.