G'morning David,

 DW> Whenever I visit Britain I get thoroughly confused by the coinage,
 DW> which bears no resemblance to the coins I remember from some 35 years
 DW> ago, when I lived there.

The banks and supermarkets accepted my Mastercard quite happily 
from St Andrews and Ayr down across England Wales last time ...  

 DW> To make matters worse, there are regional
 DW> differences. In Scotland, they use tiny scraps of paper as "pound
 DW> notes". (In England, they use a pound, and two-pound coins.) In
 DW> Northern Ireland, they also use paper notes, but they are issued by the
 DW> banks, so there are several different pound notes, produced by
 DW> different banks. Legally, this is all one kind of money -
"sterling" -
 DW> but if you carry any of the regional stuff to another part of the
 DW> country, you can have a lot of difficulty trying to spend it, or even
 DW> to change it at a bank.

It all evaporates from the pocket at astonishing rates in the UK  
compared to here.  One son was asked for $NZ15 for a glass of coke 
in London a month ago, while we quoff it off at 80 or 90c a litre 
in NZ...

 DW> In Southern Ireland (which includes the northernmost point of
 DW> the island) they use euros. Carry those across the border
 DW> which is undefended, unmarked, and virtually invisible) and
 DW> you might as well forget trying to use them.

Mmmm ... never got to visit Ireland ... yet.

 DW> Money is all an illusion anyway.

At my age, it all seems to come and go so quietly in the 
background,  but I do believe I could happily tolerate some really 
grand illusions....

Miles 
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