Random Freemanesque Babblings from idiots unable to sustain their own thread

[MaritalArtist]

And don't forget, as Mark Ceylon pointed out, we all lost 140 pence per pound when we switched to decimal currency.

[Gregg]

Pfft, if I couldn't use a card to pay for everything I'd die of starvation on that island (considering the cooking there, about as good as one could expect )

I get a few hundred £ when I get on the plane for carrying around money, rack up American Express miles and give what's left in big tips at the airport on the way home.

[longdog]

Ah.... I think I see where I went wrong.

Here's what I did...

£150 / 35 = £4.2857

So £4.25 in old money would be £4.3s.0p leaving 03.57d in old money would be 31/2d but it's not old money it's decimal so I should have made it 312/500th old pennies.

Or something like that.

I'm sorry... It won't happen again.

[Mike_p]

... So £4.25 in old money would be £4.3s.0p ...

How many shillings in a pound?

[spoiler]
Answer = 20.
So 25p = 5 shillings. (Also known as a 'crown').

The remaining 3.57pence = 8.568d. (12d to a shilling, 20 shillings to a £, therefore 240d in a £, 1p = 2.4d)

So actual amount should be £4 5s 8.56d.
[/spoiler]

[longdog]

For some reason I did my calculations on there being 12 shillings to the pound. Note to self - No... It was twelve pence to the shilling.

Don't blame me... I can barely remember the old money even though I still call a 50p a ten bob bit.

[Gregg]

All of us Americans have now gone cross-eyed.

[Mike_p]

All of us Americans have now gone cross-eyed.

Aha! Success at last!

[KickahaOta]

I was told there would be no math.

[grixit]

For some reason I did my calculations on there being 12 shillings to the pound. Note to self - No... It was twelve pence to the shilling.

Don't blame me... I can barely remember the old money even though I still call a 50p a ten bob bit.

I'm just old enough to remember when americans still sometimes called quarters (25 cent pieces) "2 bits", despite the fact that the United States never minted a 12.5 cent piece, nor had anyone chopped a spanish coin since the mid 1800s.

[MaritalArtist]

I was told there would be no math.

I think you mean maths.

[Gregg]

I lived in London more than a year and I was aware a pound was 100 pence and all the rest were some piddling fraction thereof. For my purposes, a pound was $1.65 if I was broke and needed to be precise, or a bit more than $1.50 if I had enough to not fiddle with the piddling maths. (My bank account was American and the wife I left here was downright tyrannical with my lackadaisical attempts to balance it) I tended not to carry much cash and tried my best to beg off paying the tab when I could, a skill I was quite good at.

I was a starving grad student living on a stipend so I didn't feel too guilty about it then, and since I've managed to get an employer to pay me a living wage I have felt obligated to repay the many kindnesses I was afforded back then. Its amusingly easy to get me to pick up the check, to also pick a very nice place for dinner and tip well, too. I'm making up for some legendary bar tabs. When I ask "What's for dinner?", don't be shy, go for it!

[Wakeman52]

On the subject of pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence (d)....

I was working at a petrol station part-time when UK decimalisation took place in the early 1970s. Given that the regular leaded (91 octane, IIRC) was sold at the time in imperial gallons (20 pints) for 6s 3 & 1/2d, converting that to pence (31.9p) resulted in many complaints. A typical current UK price of 123.9p / litre for 95 octane regular unleaded (it has been higher...) gives an equivalent of £5 62.5p / imperial gallon (£5 12s 6d).

I have never understood why the displayed price / litre almost always ends in .9; even more so now that the halfpence as a unit has disappeared.

[NYGman]

I always thought the .9 marketing gimmick is because it makes the price look lower than it actual is, and as pumps round and they make a tiny bit of money on the rounding. It would add op over time.

[Gregg]

In the US anyway the .9 originally came from an excise tax on gasoline. But in Ohio a few years back the added a new state tax that ended in .3 or something and people openly asked if gas was now gonna have a price ending in .2 cents. Or whatever the number was going to be, I can't remember the piddling details.

Gas prices still end in .9, I guess they're just rounding down on that. /s

[ArthurWankspittle]

in imperial gallons (20 pints)

Er, 8 pints in a gallon old chap. 20 fluid ounces in a pint.

[longdog]

in imperial gallons (20 pints)

Er, 8 pints in a gallon old chap. 20 fluid ounces in a pint.

Ha!

Glad it's not just me

[NYGman]

Hey, I was hoping for a Gallon of Beer

[Wakeman52]

Oops! Was trying to distinguish imperial gallons from US - confused by 16 fl oz to a US pint.

[Burnaby49]

Oops! Was trying to distinguish imperial gallons from US - confused by 16 fl oz to a US pint.

Always an issue in pubs and bars here in Canada. Before we deep sixed the imperial system in 1975 we had an honest 20 oz. pint. Pubs still sell in "pints" from time to time but it's now just a word devoid of any legal meaning. You may get 20oz, you may get 16 oz., or you may get any other damn thing they arbitrarily define in-house as a pint.

Surprisingly a few years back I had a pint of cider at the Fishtail brewpub in Olympia Washington and they served me a 20 oz. Imperial pint.

[longdog]

In the UK it's still illegal to sell draught beer other than in multiples of one third or one half of a pint. I've never seen thirds sold anywhere other than beer festivals.

I'm pretty much metric with most things but I likes my beer in pints I does.