Warbonnet Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 And we have progressed ! We have. Better models are cheaper today than they were back then when inflation is taken into account. Oh and decimalisation was a god send. Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 the 50p coin was a ten shilling NOTE. Imagine if nowadays there was a banknote worth 64c...... I have a 5p note - they were used for some years in the '70s, in various UK offshore territories.. ..and I do still enjoy bamboozling the youths with talk of thirty bob, etc... Quote
jhb171achill Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 And the motorway was cobbled, and everyone walking along the street was in black and white...... Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 I'm still regretting the loss of the starting handle and the kick-start. I saw a car with a motorised boot-lid the other day, the world has gone mad. Quote
Warbonnet Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 I saw a car with a motorised boot-lid the other day, the world has gone mad. Sure the grosser had that in the 60s.. [video=youtube;F7fGISs-wCQ] Quote
Weshty Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 I remember all but the farthings...... and the 50p coin was a ten shilling NOTE. Imagine if nowadays there was a banknote worth 64c...... If you had a half crown (two shillings and sixpence), which was worth 16c in today's money (or 12 1/2p sterling), you were wealthy. A Hornby 00 gauge BR Mk 1 or 2 bogie coach cost 10s / stg50p / 70c euro. Yes, 70 CENTS, not euros! There was no such thing as a Mk 3 coach. A Hornby British Rail class 31, Deltic or "Hymek" Class 35 was £2.10.0 sterling (£2.50) or €3.47. And you could get change from a £1 note for three pints. Don't forget inflation though. 10 bob in 1969 would be worth c.€16 today. So yes, even in Dublin, you'd get change from 3 pints for that! Quote
jhb171achill Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 Not in Oliver St John Gogarty's in Temple Bar, Ireland's most expensive bar. Last Thursday, a pint of Guinness had gone up from 5.95 to 6.30. Not far away, if you know where to look, it's still 4 euro till 5am. Lager in Gogarty's is well over €7. Talk about having a laugh. Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 Guinness is €4 for me in Laois or £3.30/£3.70 here in the English Midlands. I recall it hitting 30p here in about 1975. I remember thinking American tourists were thick when they just held out handfuls of £sd coins in shops and said "just take whatever it is". Then, a few years ago, I tried to explain the old money to a Serbian, and when I got to the half-crown, which was half of something that you never saw, and didn't really say on it how much it was worth, I realised that they just hadn't got time to learn it all before they went back home.. I also tried to explain Fahrenheit to him and he really thought I was making it up. Quote
jhb171achill Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 Fahrenheit had got to be the most utterly stupid of all the imperial measurements! Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 (edited) People here are mad on Imperial, but they often have no idea how it all works. Whenever anybody goes on about 'foreign' measurements, I always ask them "how many feet in a mile?" - very few have any idea. An old boy was moaning to me about kilograms once - "Why don't they wait until all the old people are dead? I don't know what a kilogram is." I asked him when he last bought a two-pound bag of sugar (having just made a cup of tea and seen a new bag in the cupboard). "Last week" was the answer. "No it wasn't" I told him, "you last bought a two-pound bag of sugar in 1968, you have been buying kilogram bags ever since then, and you still don't know what a kilogram is...?" Fahrenheit had got to be the most utterly stupid of all the imperial measurements! It sort of made sense 300 years ago - he thought 100 was blood temperature, but he might have had a touch of 'flu at the time, and he thought that zero was as cold as it would ever get. There's always Réaumur, if you really want to confuse people Edited May 13, 2015 by Broithe Quote
richrua Posted May 13, 2015 Author Posted May 13, 2015 last year in Drumshanbo I found the 3 euro pints of Tuborg refreshing in many ways. Especially seen as i am paid in Sterling. Quote
burnthebox Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 Quote Broithe, " People here are mad on Imperial", had a few litres of that myself...... Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 Quote Broithe, " People here are mad on Imperial", had a few litres of that myself...... Only out of bottles here, I hope - selling draught beer in litres is a "serious" offence - well, serious enough for you to be prosecuted. Bloke here done for selling Polish beer to Poles in half-litres - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1042009/Pub-threatened-hefty-fine-serving-lager-litre-glasses-instead-pints.html . And people still talk of MPG, when it's around thirty years since anybody bought a gallon of petrol here. Quote
richrua Posted May 13, 2015 Author Posted May 13, 2015 jayz that is so stupid. If you know youre buying a litre what on earth is the problem ? Biggest waste of tax payers money prosecuting guys like this. !!! Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 (edited) jayz that is so stupid. If you know youre buying a litre what on earth is the problem ? Biggest waste of tax payers money prosecuting guys like this. !!! And nobody had even complained. It's even madder than it looks, wines and spirits must be sold in metric measures, but draught beers and ciders must be in pints or half-pints. Bottled beers and ciders can be either. I have seen milk in pints and litres on the same shelf in supermarkets. A council on the south coast put up a sign saying "Public Convenience 400 metres" - they got a solicitor's letter telling them to change it to yards or they would be taken to court - and they would have lost, the law is very specific - road signs must be in imperial units, even for pedestrians. This sort of thing - http://www.bwmaonline.com/Road%20Signs%20Muddle.htm . Edited May 13, 2015 by Broithe Quote
richrua Posted May 13, 2015 Author Posted May 13, 2015 It's f...... Stupid. Up north here there are some dopey signs that try to tell you there's an exit in 3/4 of a mile for example. ... Takes a few goes to read that sort of thing at speed. Having said that, I generally talk in miles and feet, being near the 40 mark and having parents near the 80 mark. I missed the whole metric really. cm and mm I do like. Of course, there were also Irish Miles. Honest. Look it up. Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 I'm fairly bilingual in these things, though I think in Fahrenheit in the summer and Celsius in the winter... If they aren't still doing it, it wasn't long ago that horses and artworks were still auctioned in guineas (1 Guinea = £1.05). I needed a clock face measuring for a replacement glass, but I forgot to do it whilst I was there. So I rang the retired teacher and asked her to do it for me - "It needs to be accurate", I told her - "Six and half inches" - "Is that exact?" - "I suppose so" - "Mmm, can you do it in millimetres? It needs to be a close fit" - "I can do it in centimetres, if you can convert it". That happened just before Christmas - she was teaching primary school pupils only a few years ago.... Quote
Broithe Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 And, of course, just to annoy people here further, the inch was actually standardised to be exactly 25.4mm in as late as 1959. Quote
Glenderg Posted May 14, 2015 Posted May 14, 2015 Just divide 76.2 by 3 and you'll never get it wrong. 4mm is a foot in my world... Quote
burnthebox Posted May 14, 2015 Posted May 14, 2015 (edited) So as I was born in 1948 AD which makes me 66 YEARS ! do's that mean I'm not talking / using the correct term for my age & if I'm not what should I be saying, like should I be saying Kilometers, which would by my reckoning make me about 100.2 Kilometers, Edited May 14, 2015 by burnthebox Quote
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