h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

your working old cock! I'm on benefits

my rent is £63.52,my income support is £64.14 - not hard to work out my spare cash overflow

That IS tight. No room for even a run for chips, or a libation/ anywhere on those numbers. Not even at home.

saving for a white sheet and begging bowl, will accept washers/nuts/bolts, can always take them to a scrapyard

Maybe scrounge for 1 and 2 pence coins as well. A lot of folks find them simply a nuisance, but copper alone is worth something.

if I see small denomination coins on the floor, I will pick them up, as they will go in to my Buffalo Lodge, if folk want to chuck coins away, it's no skin off my nose to pick them up

Things must be getting tight over here ... I haven't seen a coin on the ground in ages.

Mind, one day last year I got lucky. Clearing the snow around my car, at home, I found a $10 and a $20 !!! I can only guess that some street walking kid was digging in their pockets very late at night, and didn't see their cash tumble out.

were they notes, or do you have that value in coin as well ?

our top one is a £2 coin(so far)

Our coins only go up to the $2 so far, though they have been talking of doing the same with the $5 for a time. Pockets get really heavy after a day of domestic shopping.

Mind, I was astounded at how much coin I accumulated per day when toddling around England, site-seeing. I couldn't seem to use them as fast as they came back to me.

it's a government thingif you got loads of coin in your pocket, you got money, so nowt to moan aboutand our notes are trash anyway

Your notes brought me a surprise as well. Ours are all exactly the same size, but different colourings, patterns and faces. So our wallets are commonly made to hold just that. Your 20's are just a bit larger, and the 50's quite a lot taller. I'd leave a bank after cashing some traveller's cheques, and have a strip of pink'ish bills sticking out.

oh yes! the british rulersall knowing, all seeing, all bull - can't see the wood for the trees

Hey, atleast your notes differ a lot from the American ones. I had to spend a couple of weeks in Rochester, NY a short time ago, and every time I used money I had to look closely for the denomination. They all look alike.

they have been told for years, about using different colours etc, but a small percentage of their bills are now forgeries and being in circulation for years, they are that good

got't go, a certain room of the house is callingand then shopping
back later sometime

Yeah, they have talked about security improvements and even hints of colour for ages. I don't know if they've 'gotten around to it' yet though.

And uh-huh, time for me to clear off as well. Have a good 'un, Prof.

best laid plansphone call and round to mates, to sort his PC out for him

It does seem that the 'bigger and better' the PC's, and all the 'must-have' stuff that M$ puts in, there is more and more work for the handy, techy folks, eh?

his is a little slow, only 256 mg ram, too many programs and snore away

256 is pretty sparse, for any operating system these days. I'm currently on a 2002 notebook, 750 MHz, maximum capacity of 512 MB RAM in it, running XP. Fine tuned, stripped away un-needed services and such, it does quite well for internet and one or two apps at a time. Of course, there are times when something in the background wil eat up it's little resources ... But I am matured enough to be patient. (read as old ...)

he has XP pro on and this afternoon, found 2 programs were in conflict and were at war with each otherby the same ISP, so took a little time sorting