The Bluestocking Inn, cocktails and cocoa and all

[DeanElderberry]

Opening soon in a salubrious location.

And thanks to the miraculous qualities, although we will indeed have

One-steps and two-steps and the divil knows what new steps
We know that we never would be dull again, bedad
We'll have wine, porter and lemonade.
We'll have cocktails and cocoa and all
We'll have champagnes tonight
But NO real pains next morning
Tonight when we dance at the Bluestocking Ball

slight apologies to Frank Harte

8 km is 5 miles
you get more bang for your buck with length being g metric

I always weigh myself in metric ( the scales do either )

but then convert to stones to see if my weight is misbehaving

Oh man I'd never actually thought about HOW they did the conversion from LSD into Decimal.
That it was done by adding everything up and converting it. And done over night!

How did the change work for cash in your pocket?
I remember the odd 2 shilling coin kicking around in my youth that became 10ps
But what about other coins and notes was a pound note the same?

I've loads to catch up on, but before I forget - thank you Prof B for reminding me that French numbers have a trace of the Celtic/Galish numbers - quatre-vingts, 80, being literally 'four twenties'.
I knew there was some modern example of counting in twenties somewhere in my mind, and I can't believe I didn't think of it being in French - nounouille!🙄

Good news: I've been for a check-up and my ankle has responded well to treatment and physio, so I don't have to have surgery for the foreseeable, phew!

I was so geared about being Big and Bwave about surgery, plus I had made lots of lists and checked that I had nice PJs and decent slippers and really important things like that😏 - I'm certainly not disappointed. but I have stored up a lot of list-making/teeth gritting/shoulder squaring/upper lip stiffening etc etc which is now unnecessary.

I'm still not very mobile but I can manage, and I'm not much pain so I'm happy with the outcome

good PJs and slippers never go amiss, Marie. But glad you don’t need them!

The only thing I remember from decimalisation is having some old pennies, someone must have given them to me because they cba changing them/ didn't spend them in time. To small me though they were money for sweets. I kept trying to peddle to the shops on my blue tricycle with them, miscellaneous adults were constantly having to intercept me.

I use pounds, ounces, miles, yards when talking because kilos or kilometres seemed really pretentious. When weighing myself...I don't weigh myself. No good will come from it.

Cook in either metric or imperial, I've got a Marguerite Patten cookbook that's really good for the basics. All the recipes are in imperial. As for cooking by volume. I believe the American, European and Australian cups, teaspoons, etc. are all slightly different. So I don't trust them, particularly for ingredients like flour that can get packed down and vary hugely.

Sixpence was two-and-a-half pence. We lost our coppers, but I can’t remember whether we had an overlap.

I remember we lost our old halfpenny when I was a child - the farthing had already gone.

Shops had dual prices for a while.

Cups were probably a pragmatic solution for migrant populations who wouldn’t all have carted scales and weights around. So long as you’ve got a recipe which works with ratios of ingredients and isn’t too pernickety about packing.

DF used to organise Christian Aid collections and I’d help with sorting and counting. Farthings, ha’pennies and later ‘old money’ would show up long after they could be exchanged. And a few foreign coins so I had a nice little collection to use for mini brass rubbing.

Although I like the metric/decimal system, because it's so logical, the imperial measurements/£.s.d were such a fantastic work-out for the brain!

I found some old Primary Cert [end of primary schooling, for many years the highest qualification people got, e.g. my parents; secondary schooling wasn't free until the late 1960s] arithmetic papers, and the questions demanded a fantastic ability to reason and calculate across 14s and 16s and 12s and 20s.
By 12-year-olds!

The brain develops capabilities the more you use it - the brains of those 12-year-olds would show up as having highly developed areas that are probably blank these days, even in adults.

We weren't allowed calculators in my maths O Level (1973) - they were far too expensive for mere mortals, and logarithms were done using a complicated book of tables.

There were reference points that equated to "old money". For instance the pound was the same and £1 notes, rather than coins, were still the main currency. The 50p piece had already been introduced before decimalisation and was used alongside 10 old shilling notes for a time. The 10p piece equated to 2 shillings and the 5p piece to 1 shilling. The new twenty pence piece was introduced much later - 1980s I think. The problem with conversion came in amounts lower that 1 shilling, with some odd pence having to be rounded up slightly and others rounded down to fit the new system. For instance 7 old pence would be rounded down to 2 1/2 new pence (the old sixpence) whereas 11 old pence would be rounded up to 5p. One or two people thought they had been swindled, but most understood the reasoning.

I do recall getting quite a lot of overtime pay that weekend, so I was very happy!

I'm still bitter that Trebor chews, that had been 4 for 1d, became 4 for 1p, likewise packets of 8 aniseed balls. Shocking exploitation of consumers.

To be fair, primary cert was designed for 14 year olds, that being the official end of school age. See also the full needlework curriculum, which included turning the heel of a sock, continuing to be foisted of final year primary school girls for some years after the final year age had gone down to 12.

Two caveats:

I know some parents pulled their children out of school early

Teaching children to sew and knit (and cook) is much better than not teaching them. Pity the boys didn't benefit from it too.

@EdithStourton - the chair was brilliant, I 'm getting one!

🎉

Hi, haven’t been following these threads at all but Lerato Umah-Shaylor on radio 4 / kitchen cabinet just admitted loving hot weetabix.

As you were

The depths of depravity that people can sink to

or

How delicious, what excellent taste

sad times though, I can't eat weetabix

Jay was in the first camp

Not sure if I should admit to liking hot Weetabix with a splodge of marmite instead of sugar.

I am very surprised that someone on a trending thread is claiming to be in their 60s. That is all.

I've had hot Weetabix. It was quite pleasant. I've never tasted Marmite.

I have always been metric😏

I was trying to recreate the Sainsbury's cereal milk cookies. They are really good but the nearest Sainsbury's is a good 1.5 hours drive (or longer, depending on tourist density) away. I tried it with cornflakes and while the cookies were nice they didn't taste like the milk that is left over at the end of a bowl of cereal. I now wonder if weetabix would be better than cornflakes for it.

Not to mention all the sweetie prices that were rounded up.

My mum's eldest sister was allowed to leave school at 12, but had to pass her Leaving Certificate first. She didn't actually want to leave - she was top of her class. Apparently, all that was required was a letter from her parents to say that she was required to work for the family.

The poor soul was put into service on a farm and was miserable. She was saved by the outbreak of WW2 - she became a nurse.

She married a Cockney who was wounded in the Normandy landings and was accidentally transferred to the hospital where she worked in Dundee.

Their eldest daughter became a teacher.

Hot weetabix is the only way to have weetabix surely.

I would say it's the breakfast of champions, but there are some mornings when only a sausage soda will hit the spot.