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Decimal day-fifty years ago today
Comments
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Always remember going into the sweet shop in Herbert Rd and my friend, asked with confusion on decimal day “how much is that thrupenny Kit Kat?” And the seller said “Thrupence”. I don’t know why but it still makes me laugh thinking about it 50 years later 😄
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Ireland changed on the same day.2
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I felt sorry for the older people, I used to laugh when I heard them ask for proper money in their shopping change. But change we had to do, centigrade, kilometres etc and Litres etc, and decimal money. I have seen a lot of change in my life and still have problems trying to work out metric sizes into old measurements so I can work out the size of things0
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Difficult to imagine doing a spreadsheet with old money.2
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I swallowed a thrupenny bit when I was very young (at infant school). I recall having an x-ray and the doctors laughing when they saw it!0
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Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.0 -
Who would have thought that the Republic would be the more confident open country?SporadicAddick said:
Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.0 -
As a result of this thread, bought this on ebay - a really interesting little piece of social history.
At the back it has a couple of quizzes, asking readers to work out various sums in relation to decimal..
On a blue background:-
On 15th February Michael Smith travels from his home to work....
On a pink background:
On Monday, 15 February, Mrs Sarah Brown does her washing as usual. Then she takes a bus to the shops...
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A country that has given up its Sovereign currency and has a non elected political appointment able to change it's border rules without consultation, and affect its immediate recovery from a global pandemic. Oh for the openness and confidence afforded by our friends in the EU....Rothko said:
Who would have thought that the Republic would be the more confident open country?SporadicAddick said:
Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.
You started it ....1 -
Based on this you would only need ten years to buy the house using one third of your income, albeit without interest taken into account.clive said:Average prices on this day
House: £5,378
Council rent: £5 a week
Pint of lager: 12.5p
Gallon of petrol: 34p
20 cigarettes: 25p
The average weekly wage was £30.981 - Sponsored links:
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My dad & mum brought their house in Plumstead in 1971, for £4,800. My dad saved £800 towards it as a deposit in a year or two. Both have passed and will be selling the house this year for something about 100 times the price they paid for it in '71. There is no way my dad would have been able to save £80K in the same timescale, if he was around today.jimmymelrose said:
Based on this you would only need ten years to buy the house using one third of your income, albeit without interest taken into account.clive said:Average prices on this day
House: £5,378
Council rent: £5 a week
Pint of lager: 12.5p
Gallon of petrol: 34p
20 cigarettes: 25p
The average weekly wage was £30.983 -
As much as I'm happily willing to accept criticism of the EU, I have to object to yet another false claim that they are non-elected officials.SporadicAddick said:
A country that has given up its Sovereign currency and has a non elected political appointment able to change it's border rules without consultation, and affect its immediate recovery from a global pandemic. Oh for the openness and confidence afforded by our friends in the EU....Rothko said:
Who would have thought that the Republic would be the more confident open country?SporadicAddick said:
Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.
You started it ....
The UK had European elections but the public never took them as seriously as 'General Elections' and that was part of the problem.
It is still the case other current EU countries.
You can choose not to vote but you can't then say that they are unelected.4 -
The average house price was just over four times the annual average salary, now it's closer to nine times that wage.jimmymelrose said:
Based on this you would only need ten years to buy the house using one third of your income, albeit without interest taken into account.clive said:Average prices on this day
House: £5,378
Council rent: £5 a week
Pint of lager: 12.5p
Gallon of petrol: 34p
20 cigarettes: 25p
The average weekly wage was £30.98
The Bank of England interest rate was 7% in 1971
If you had saved £1,000 in the average savings account for 50 years you would have £12,198.But after inflation this would be £781
Around 53% of women worked in 1971 compared with 72% today.
Working days lost to strikes in 1971 13.6 million compared with 273,000 in 2018.
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Fair point...Although UVDL is an appointment contrived behind closed doors, albeit then rubber stamped by the elected parliament.jimmymelrose said:
As much as I'm happily willing to accept criticism of the EU, I have to object to yet another false claim that they are non-elected officials.SporadicAddick said:
A country that has given up its Sovereign currency and has a non elected political appointment able to change it's border rules without consultation, and affect its immediate recovery from a global pandemic. Oh for the openness and confidence afforded by our friends in the EU....Rothko said:
Who would have thought that the Republic would be the more confident open country?SporadicAddick said:
Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.
You started it ....
The UK had European elections but the public never took them as seriously as 'General Elections' and that was part of the problem.
It is still the case other current EU countries.
You can choose not to vote but you can't then say that they are unelected.1 -
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/8/how-are-the-commission-president-and-commissioners-appointedSporadicAddick said:
Fair point...Although UVDL is an appointment contrived behind closed doors, albeit then rubber stamped by the elected parliament.jimmymelrose said:
As much as I'm happily willing to accept criticism of the EU, I have to object to yet another false claim that they are non-elected officials.SporadicAddick said:
A country that has given up its Sovereign currency and has a non elected political appointment able to change it's border rules without consultation, and affect its immediate recovery from a global pandemic. Oh for the openness and confidence afforded by our friends in the EU....Rothko said:
Who would have thought that the Republic would be the more confident open country?SporadicAddick said:
Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.
You started it ....
The UK had European elections but the public never took them as seriously as 'General Elections' and that was part of the problem.
It is still the case other current EU countries.
You can choose not to vote but you can't then say that they are unelected.0 -
Brill.
Are we allowed a brexit debate on this thread now the Republic of Ireland has been mentioned by others?
OK then brexit supporters who scorn Ireland, tell us your plan for the border on the island of Ireland that separates the UK from the EU that you voted to 'leave'.4 -
jimmymelrose said:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/8/how-are-the-commission-president-and-commissioners-appointedSporadicAddick said:
Fair point...Although UVDL is an appointment contrived behind closed doors, albeit then rubber stamped by the elected parliament.jimmymelrose said:
As much as I'm happily willing to accept criticism of the EU, I have to object to yet another false claim that they are non-elected officials.SporadicAddick said:
A country that has given up its Sovereign currency and has a non elected political appointment able to change it's border rules without consultation, and affect its immediate recovery from a global pandemic. Oh for the openness and confidence afforded by our friends in the EU....Rothko said:
Who would have thought that the Republic would be the more confident open country?SporadicAddick said:
Interesting how UK and RoI have diverged over the last 50 years...guinnessaddick said:Ireland changed on the same day.
You started it ....
The UK had European elections but the public never took them as seriously as 'General Elections' and that was part of the problem.
It is still the case other current EU countries.
You can choose not to vote but you can't then say that they are unelected.From The Independent - July 2019. The reality of EU democracy is some way from the brochure. How far removed from the electorate can democracy be before it becomes undemocratic???
The European parliament’s political groups have united to condemn the selection of the next European Commission president, branding the process an undemocratic stitch-up by national governments.
EU leaders chose Ursula von der Leyen as their pick to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as the leader of the European Union’s executive branch despite the fact she was not on the ballot paper as a candidate and has no manifesto.
The European Council effectively ignored the European parliament’s spitzenkandidat, or “lead candidate” system, which was supposed to inject an element of democracy into the selection of commission president – instead nominating the defence minister, who is largely unknown outside Germany.
“I’m not going to congratulate the council. President Tusk, I cannot support how things were done and the lack of respect that you’ve shown to other institutions,” said Gonzalez Pons, spokesperson for the dominant centre-right EPP group in the parliament. The EPP’s criticism of the process is notable because Ms Von der Leyen, a member of Angela Merkel’s CDU party, is actually a member of the EPP.
Mr Pons continued: “The future of Europe can no longer be decided behind closed doors. The spizenkandidat process is not about one person or one name – the citizens of Europe want to elect the person who is governing Europe. This is not revolutionary, this is democracy.“The council has the right to propose a candidate to lead the commission to lead the parliament. However, what the council doesn’t have the right to do is to ignore all the candidates that have been voted for by European citizens.” He said the approach of carving up other top jobs taken by EU leaders was “clearly against the treaties”.
“You were telling the parliament who it should nominate as president of our chamber! You are now at the point where you’re deciding who is in charge of the ECB [European Central Bank] as if there was one more political nomination. This is not democracy – you are supporting the Eurosceptics, even the nationalists. None of the presidents on the council would accept this being done in their countries. It would be taken to a constitutional court,” he said.
Iratxe García Perez, leader of the second largest group, the centre-left socialists, said EU leaders can’t “come here and just lay out the council position and say that we have to vote for it”.“We believe that it should have been Frans Timmermans to lead the commission because he was the spizenkandidat who could have achieved a majority of votes in this parliament and also because of the democratic rules that we’ve established,” she added.
“What we need first and foremost is to democratise the process of appointing leadership roles in the EU. We can discuss names, gender balance, geographic balance: but for as long as we don’t have a transparent, democratic process for selecting those who lead Europe, we will not have achieved satisfaction,” he told MEPs.
He said his group would propose “a conference with a sufficient duration, two years, two-and-a-half years” to democratise the electoral process in the EU “so that by the next elections we have a mechanism in place”.
But Donald Tusk, the European Council president, who looked uncomfortable sitting through the speeches in the parliament, defended the approach taken by the council.
“To some the parliament represents genuine European democracy because of its directly elected members, while to others it is the European Council because of the strong democratic legitimacy of the leaders. Such disputes make little sense as both institutions are democratic,” he told MEPs.Despite the furore, it is yet to be seen whether MEPs – who technically have a veto on the appointment – will block the council’s choice. Philippe Lamberts, co-leader of the Green group, admonished his fellow MEPs for not standing up to the council, warning: “It’s easy to criticise the heads of state and government but I wanted to say to all of you in this house that if the parliament is emerging from this episode in a weaker position then it only has itself to blame.”
Under the spitzenkandidat system agreed by the parliament, each political group nominated a candidate, who stood on an identifiable manifesto, for commission president. The candidate from the winning group – or one who could command a majority across the parliament – would have become leader of he EU’s executive. However, European Union leaders refused to write the system into law and ignored it when the time came – carving up the top jobs at a three-day summit in Brussels
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I'll give the thread 10 mins....seth plum said:Brill.
Are we allowed a brexit debate on this thread now the Republic of Ireland has been mentioned by others?
OK then brexit supporters who scorn Ireland, tell us your plan for the border on the island of Ireland that separates the UK from the EU that you voted to 'leave'.
We have left the EU, the border is still there, it's imperfect but pragmatic. I'm not sure as a leaver that "I" need a plan - that's what the elected politicians have put in place and signed off on. It clearly hasn't been the barrier that you implied throughout or that our friends in the EU politicised.
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When you say 'we have left the EU' are you suggesting the UK has left the EU on an equal basis for all four countries of the UK, or that all four countries of the UK have the same equality of status as before the brexit vote?SporadicAddick said:
I'll give the thread 10 mins....seth plum said:Brill.
Are we allowed a brexit debate on this thread now the Republic of Ireland has been mentioned by others?
OK then brexit supporters who scorn Ireland, tell us your plan for the border on the island of Ireland that separates the UK from the EU that you voted to 'leave'.
We have left the EU, the border is still there, it's imperfect but pragmatic. I'm not sure as a leaver that "I" need a plan - that's what the elected politicians have put in place and signed off on. It clearly hasn't been the barrier that you implied throughout or that our friends in the EU politicised.
Whatever is left, that you describe as 'imperfect but pragmatic', is an illusion that isn't pragmatic at all (if pragmatism means the exact same benefits for the whole of the UK either now, or as it was before).
Did the ballot paper mention anything about differentiating any particular part of the UK after 'leave' is supposed to have happened?
I note with interest that you are using the commonly suggested 'not my problem the UK/EU border' trope. Does that mean that as a leaver you didn't know what you were voting for?
Certainly the elected politicians have not put any kind of coherent plan in place, and as for signing off on it, what is Michael Gove (an elected politician) now seeking extensions and changes for if it is all sorted? Looks like you don't have a workable plan for the UK/EU land border you voted for, neither do those elected politicians you mentioned.
The UK/EU border has always been politicised (hence the Good Friday Agreement), it clearly hasn't just recently been politicised by anybody's friends in the EU, but the modern issue of the UK/EU land border has been turned into a live situation by those who voted 'leave' in the brexit referendum.
I imagine a lot of English people will also say 'it's imperfect' too, but the conclusion I come to is that because it involves Ireland the majority of English people revert to another ancient tradition of disparaging ireland and the Irish.
Imperfection is a problem for the Irish, created by the British, principally the English.2 -
The UK has left the EU. The imperfect solution for the Irish border is pragmatic. I note tonight Lord Frost has been appointed to lead ongoing development of the protocols. That is an excellent appointment. I knew exactly what I was voting for. There seems to be a workable plan that needs developing. The EU absolutely politicised the Irish Border - it was a principle lever in their negotiation. I'm not sure if "disparaging Ireland and the Irish people" is aimed at me, but if it is, then you are wrong. Your last line is perhaps most telling...seth plum said:
When you say 'we have left the EU' are you suggesting the UK has left the EU on an equal basis for all four countries of the UK, or that all four countries of the UK have the same equality of status as before the brexit vote?SporadicAddick said:
I'll give the thread 10 mins....seth plum said:Brill.
Are we allowed a brexit debate on this thread now the Republic of Ireland has been mentioned by others?
OK then brexit supporters who scorn Ireland, tell us your plan for the border on the island of Ireland that separates the UK from the EU that you voted to 'leave'.
We have left the EU, the border is still there, it's imperfect but pragmatic. I'm not sure as a leaver that "I" need a plan - that's what the elected politicians have put in place and signed off on. It clearly hasn't been the barrier that you implied throughout or that our friends in the EU politicised.
Whatever is left, that you describe as 'imperfect but pragmatic', is an illusion that isn't pragmatic at all (if pragmatism means the exact same benefits for the whole of the UK either now, or as it was before).
Did the ballot paper mention anything about differentiating any particular part of the UK after 'leave' is supposed to have happened?
I note with interest that you are using the commonly suggested 'not my problem the UK/EU border' trope. Does that mean that as a leaver you didn't know what you were voting for?
Certainly the elected politicians have not put any kind of coherent plan in place, and as for signing off on it, what is Michael Gove (an elected politician) now seeking extensions and changes for if it is all sorted? Looks like you don't have a workable plan for the UK/EU land border you voted for, neither do those elected politicians you mentioned.
The UK/EU border has always been politicised (hence the Good Friday Agreement), it clearly hasn't just recently been politicised by anybody's friends in the EU, but the modern issue of the UK/EU land border has been turned into a live situation by those who voted 'leave' in the brexit referendum.
I imagine a lot of English people will also say 'it's imperfect' too, but the conclusion I come to is that because it involves Ireland the majority of English people revert to another ancient tradition of disparaging ireland and the Irish.
Imperfection is a problem for the Irish, created by the British, principally the English.3 - Sponsored links:
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Nooooooooooo!A light-hearted and nostalgic trip back 50 years to when we all went decimal - hijacked by f*cking Brexit.You know where to go.10
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I don't go there for this very reason....I'll close up now.bobmunro said:Nooooooooooo!A light-hearted and nostalgic trip back 50 years to when we all went decimal - hijacked by f*cking Brexit.You know where to go.2 -
Ironic that I'm getting an advert asking 'How long can we keep this up?2
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🙄🙄🙄 Guys, you know where the Brexit thread is, take that stuff over there please.Back to the topic under discussion, I wasn't born when decimalisation came in, but remember the shilling and two bob bits being used as 5p and 10p pieces when I was a kid. I think the oldest one I ever had was a 1936 George VI one. We also had a load of old pre-decimalisation halfpennies (rather than the dinky post-decimalisation half pence ones) for use with Grandad's shove ha'penny board.On the wider question of metric versus imperial measurements generally, I'm mostly metric but with a few exceptions. I tend to do personal height in feet and inches, personal weight in stones and pounds, and long distances in miles, but when I'm doing crafts/decorating it's mm, cm and m, and cooking is g or ml. Temperatures I'm completely metric with, and couldn't tell you what 70 Fahrenheit feels like.Where the metric stuff really comes into it's own is doing anything scientific, as the vast majority of SI units are defined in relation to each other and standardised measurements like the kilogram or metre, which makes the maths a shitload easier, particularly where you're working across disciplines that had their own separate imperial measures for things.1
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Got a FitBit for Christmas and finally got round to setting it up today. It asked for my height in centimetres, but my weight in stones and pounds. These were the factory settings....aliwibble said:🙄🙄🙄 Guys, you know where the Brexit thread is, take that stuff over there please.Back to the topic under discussion, I wasn't born when decimalisation came in, but remember the shilling and two bob bits being used as 5p and 10p pieces when I was a kid. I think the oldest one I ever had was a 1936 George VI one. We also had a load of old pre-decimalisation halfpennies (rather than the dinky post-decimalisation half pence ones) for use with Grandad's shove ha'penny board.On the wider question of metric versus imperial measurements generally, I'm mostly metric but with a few exceptions. I tend to do personal height in feet and inches, personal weight in stones and pounds, and long distances in miles, but when I'm doing crafts/decorating it's mm, cm and m, and cooking is g or ml. Temperatures I'm completely metric with, and couldn't tell you what 70 Fahrenheit feels like.Where the metric stuff really comes into it's own is doing anything scientific, as the vast majority of SI units are defined in relation to each other and standardised measurements like the kilogram or metre, which makes the maths a shitload easier, particularly where you're working across disciplines that had their own separate imperial measures for things.1 -
Never thought of myself as arithmetically sophisticated before, thanks Seth.seth plum said:I remember it well. Also how ripped off a lot of the population were.
People can handle inches feet and yards even today. Can't they?
The old system simply used different number bases and led to an arithmetically sophisticated population.0 -
[Insert political comment in a thread with nothing to do about politics here]3
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Getting back to old weights and measures - do you still buy eggs by the dozen/half dozen?
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Never mind that, the real question is do you go to work on an egg...SomervilleAddick said:Getting back to old weights and measures - do you still buy eggs by the dozen/half dozen?0 -
Anyway, I still remember well my first transaction in decimal currency. I bought some sweets at the “hut” in Shrewsbury Park and asked “how much?”. The lady replied “two new pee”. Little did I know that 50 years later there’d be an argument about Brexit on this decimalisation thread.
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