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Sunday 15 October 2017

No tipping

While out on a walk today we popped into a favourite cafe for a coffee. On the counter was a saucer for tips which seemed to be doing better than usual with a few pound coins among the silver. All were the old round coin I noticed.

It’s the thought that counts.

7 comments:

Clacket said...

Good noticing! I think it’s actually called Gresham’s Law, pretty fundamental in economic history and theory. This observed and much remarked-upon phenomenon dates back at least to Tudor/Stuart times. Even earlier, Romans and their predecessors were forever clipping coins. Everyone tries to pass off a thing they hold for more value than it’s worth. Recipients of the devalued coinage/currency don’t or can’t go back to the ‘original’ issuer but seek to pass it on to the next schmuck. Hence inflation, etcetera and so on. Empires rising or falling thereby, unaccountable and unpredictable consequences…

Honesty compels me to admit that I did the very same in the sandwich shop just this week. The assistant was touchingly grateful that I tendered the exact charge without the bothersome need of change… Think nothing of it, my dear madam, it’s just the kind of guy I am!

Hope you left some kind of tip, anyway. Nobody loves a cheapskate.

Demetrius said...

Pounds? I still have a few old shillings, would they do?

Scrobs. said...

I fund an 'old' pound coin in my parking change, and popped into the post office to ask if they would change it.

'Nope, Scrobs' was the stern answer, so I asked what should I do then?

Answer, buy one first class stamp and get change!

Great result!

Then a day later MrsO'Blene found another one in her purse...

A K Haart said...

Clacket - I couldn't leave a tip suitable for two cups of coffee. I never carry coins around these days, they all go into a pot for parking meters or charity boxes.

Demetrius - it's worth a try unless the shillings are worth more than a quid. Don't older ones have silver in them?

Scrobs - I bet a first class stamp is not far off a quid these days.

Clacket said...

Well, you say that… Just there you had it within your power to give a tip that is worth more than mere money. You could actually have pleasantly pointed out that you were in the fact the highly regarded doyen or gatekeeper of a coterie of Right Thinking bloggers. Thusly intrigued, our server (unlovely term, granted) could thereby have been introduced to a world which heroically attempts (and let it be said for all its faults far, far outweighs the delusional attractions of a debased and despicable coinage) to place reliance, albeit and admittedly erratically and inconsistently, on the truer virtues of compassion, seasoned scepticism, intelligence, independence, suspicion of government and most of all practical realism... Okay, most likely the outcome in this particular instance would have been: ‘I mean like, wow, who was that weird old guy in the hat just then? What was he like? And the tosser kept the change! I tell you if they come back, next time, you’re doing them...’ Far as I vaguely recall, I think John the Baptist got a similar reception. No-one ever said it was going to be easy being right...give us a break guys!

Next up: The real victim, a typically contrarian and revisionist take on how Harvey Weinstein is actually sort of, in a way, cuddly and quite possibly misunderstood...

James Higham said...

Good way to get rid of them.

A K Haart said...

Clacket - strange that you should mention the weird old guy in the hat. There was an old chap with a long grey goatee beard, long grey pony tail, a black top hat and what looked like welders' goggles. Also some kind of heavy metal T-shirt featuring a fairground rendering of a skull on the back. I would probably have seemed terribly normal even if I'd been unwise enough to initiate a blogging conversation.

James - but not quite a tip.