NatWest
BARCLAYS
MIDLAND
The Listening Bank
Member HSBC <!► Gmup
The Company logos öf the ‘big four’ high Street banks
► Currency and cash
The currency of Britain is the pound sterling, whose symbol is '£’, always written before the amouni. Inform- ally, a pound is sometimes called a 'quid', so £20 might be expressed as ‘twenty quid’. There are 100 pence (written ’p', pronounced ‘pea’) in a pound.
The onc-pound coin has four different designs: an English one, a Scottish one, a Northern Irish one and a Welsh one (on which the inscripcion on the side is in Welsh; on all the others it is in Latin).
In Scotland, banknotes with a Scottish design are issued. These notes are perfectly legal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but banks and shops are not obliged to accept them if they don't want to and nobody has the right to demand change in Scottish notes.
Before 1971 Britain used the 'LSD' system. There were twelve pennies in a Shilling and twenty Shillings in a pound. Amounts were written like this: £3 1 2s. 6d. ( = three pounds, twelve Shillings and sixpence). If you read any novels set in Britain before 19 71, ybu may come across the following: a farthing = a quarter of a penny (notused after i960) a ha’penny (halfpenny) = half of a penny
a threepenny bit = threepence a tanner = an informal name for a sixpenny coin a bob = an informal name for a Shilling
a half crown = two-and-a-half Shillings (or two and sixpence)
People were not enthusiastic about the change to what they called ‘new money’. For a long time after- wards, the question 'what’s that in old money?’ was used to imply that what somebody had just said was too complicated to be clear. In fact, money provides frequent oppor- tunities for British conservatism (see chapter 3) to show itself. When the one-pound coin was introduced in 1983, it was very unpopulär. People said they were sad to see the end of the pound note, which it replaced, and that a mere coin didn’t seem to be worth as much. Another example is the reaction to the European euro. Since 1991 this has had the same Status in Britain as Scottisli banknotes have in England. But the first signs were that most shops and banks were refusing to accept them.
► How much do you want?
On tins and packets of food in British shops, the weight of an item is written in lhe kilos and grams familiär to people from Continental Europe. However, mosL British people have litde idea of what these terms mean (see chapter 3). Therefore, many of their packets and tins also record their weight in pounds (written as 'lbs’) and ounces (written as ‘oz’). Moreover, nobody ever asks for a kilo of apples or 200 grams of cheese. If those were the amounis you wanted, you would liave to ask for ‘two pounds or so’ of apples and 'half ä pound or less' of cheese and you would be about right.
Shoe and clothing sizes are also measured on different scales in Britain. The people who work in shops which seil these things usually known about Continental and American sizes too, but most British people don’t.
Spending money: shopping
The British are not very adventurous shoppers. They like reliability and buy brand name. goods wherever possible, preferably with the price clearly marked (they are not very keen on haggling over prices). It is therefore not surprising that a very high proportion of the country’s shops are branches of chain Stores.
Visitors from northern European countries are sometimes surprised by the shabbiness of shop-windbw displays, even in pros- perous areas. This is not necessarily a sign of economic depression.
It is just that the British do not demand art in their shop Windows. In general, they have been rather slow to take on the idea that shopping might actually be fun. On the positive side, visitors are also sometimes struck by the variety of types of shop. Most shops are chain Stores, but among those that are not, there is much individuaiity. Independent shopowners feel no need to follow conventionall ideas about what a particular shop does and doesn’t seil.
In the last quarter of the twentieth Century supermarkets began moving out of town, where there was lots of free parking space. As they did so, they became higger, turning into ‘hypermarkeis’ stocking a wider variety of items. For example, most of them now seil alcoholic drinks, which are conventionally bought ai shops called ‘off-licences’. They also seil petrol and some items traditionally found in chemists and newsagents.
However, this trend has not gone as far as it has in some other European countries. For example, few supermarkets seil clothes,
A
‘corner shop’
shoes, kitchen Utensils or electrical goods. They still concentrate mainly on everyday needs. An exception is the first warehouse shopping club in Europe, opened in 1993 in Essex by the American Company Costco. Here, 'members' (who have paid a small fee) can find almost everything that a shopper could ever want to buy — at a reduced price. Shopping clubs of this kind have spread rapidly all over the USA. At the time of writing, it is too early to say whether they will do so in Britain. The move out of town, however, is already well established, with many of the country’s chain Stores following the supermarkets inLo specially built shopping centres, most of them covered. (Britain has some of the largest covered shopping areas in Europe.) In 1 980 only 5% of shop sales took place in these locations. In 1994 this figure had jumped to 2y%.
The area in town where the local shops are concenlrated is known as the high Street (the American equivalent is ‘Main Street’). British high streets have suffered from the move towards out-of-town shopping. In the worst-affected towns, as many as a quarter of the shops in the high Street are vacant. But high streets have often survived by adapting. In larger towns, shops have tended to become either more specialized or to seil especially cheap goods (for people who are too poor to own a car and drive out of town). Many have become charity shops (selling second-hand items and staffed by volunteers) and discount stores. Many of the central streets are now reserved for pedestrians, so that they are more pleasant to be in.
Even most small high streets still manage to have at least one representative of the various kinds of conventional food shop (such as butcher, grocer, fishmonger, greengrocer), which do well by selling more expensive luxury items. (Although the middle classes use them, supermarkets have never been regarded as ‘smart’ or fashionable places in which to shop.)
The survival of the high Street has been helped by the fact that department stores have been comparatively slow to move out of town. Almost every large town or suburb has at least one of these. They are usually not chain stores and each Company runs a Maximum of a few branches in the same region.
Shop opening hours
The normal time for shops to open isnine M the morning. Large out- of-town supermarkets stay open all day until about eight o’clock. Most small shops stay open all day (some take a break for lunch, usually between one and two) and then close at lialf-past five or a bit later. In some towns there is an ‘early closing day’ when the shops shut at midday and do not open again. However, this is becoming rarer. In fact, over the last twenty-five years, shop opening hours have become more varied. Regulations have been relaxed. It is now much easier than it used to be to find shops open after six. In some areas the local authorities are encouraging high Street shops to ► The corner shop
A shop by itself in a resideniial area is often referred to as ‘ the corner shop’. These sometimes seil various kinds of food, but they are not always general grocers. Usually their main business is in newspapers, magazines, sweets and tobacea products, It is from these that most ’paper rounds’ (see chapter 16) are organized. Only in corner shops do shopkeepers know their customcrs personally. Only in them is the interaction across the counter often social as '.veil as transaclional. People working in other shops are often very bei pfui, hm the conversatiön usually has some clear purpose.