off topic-uk money?

[Dave Berry]

> >Other, less common, terms are a guinea, which was a pound and a shilling,
> >a shilling being 1/20 of a pound, a sovereign, which was 8 pounds and 8
> >shillings, and half-a-crown, which was of course half a sovereign.  There
> >used to be a unit called the bishop, but this was banned in the mid-1800s.
> >
>         No, a crown was 5 shilling (25 new P) so therefore half-
> a-crown was 2s and 6d or 12 and 1/2 pee.  Nit Pick Nit pick

You mean you believed the bits about the foal, the pony and the bishop?!!
That's 3 furlongs that you owe me :-).

And I think a sovereign was just a pound coin from way back when, but
I may be wrong.  It certainly wasn't 8 pounds and 8 shillings (but a
guinea really was a pound and a shilling).  Oh, and a florin was 2 shillings,
equivalent to 10p in decimal money.

Dave.

P.S. Did you know that a chain is an old unit of length defined by the
length of the cricket pitch at Lords?