Change for the worse!

 

CHANGE FOR THE WORSE!  

FIRST they devalued the pound. Then they shrank our fivers and tenners - and from now on, the small change in your pocket will never feel the same again!  

Wednesday’s issue of a smaller 10p piece means we now have a full set of tiddlywinks to play with. And with the facelift for the former “two bob bit”(seen below), we’ve lost our last lingering link with pre-decimal currency. 

For those of us still mourning the loss of the tanner and threepenny piece, this is the last straw - and for those who make or own vending machines, it must be a nightmare trying to keep up. 

We all know our hard-earned cash buys less and less each year without the men from the Mint making it look even more worthless. 

 

To rub it in, they’re even making the new 1p and 2p coins out of steel with a copper facade because bronze coins now cost more to make than they are worth!  

The powers-that-be think nothing of the confusion all this Monopoly money causes to elderly folk, many of whom are still grappling with the reality of not having half-crowns and white fivers (not to mention drinkers trying to sort out the right change for last orders). 

The new 10p piece (or “florin" to those of us with long memories) is now half the size - more like the old 5p, which they got rid of in favour of that silly silver toytown coin not so long ago. 

Smith on Saturday reckons It won’t be too long before they produce coins that you cannot actually see with the naked eye - giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “invisible earnings”!

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RADIO GA-GA!

BBC Radio One has been celebrating its 25th anniversary with an orgy of self-congratulation by its brain-dead jocks. 

But wait - now the dodos who run this dinosaur station are threatening to introduce “more intelligent” DJs who “have got something to say.” 

Personally, I’d rather have some mindless presenter who shuts up and plays good music than middle-aged middle-brow morons like Simon Bates!

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NOW THAT’S RICH!

INTERESTING to learn that the 12 wealthiest women in Britain, revealed for the first time this week, all inherited their riches - four of them from the Guinness family alone! 

But even more intriguing is that 30-year-old heiress Donatella Moores (only daughter of Littlewoods Pools mogul Peter Moores) clocks in at second place with a personal fortune of £234.5 million - and she’s single. Do you think she’d be interested in a provincial journalist who could help her spend it?

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(This column was originally published in the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph on Saturday, 3 October, 1992)