OT: Meldrew moment

[tim.....]

because it isn't that simple

if you accept coins as payment you have to have a mechanism for giving coins as change

tim

[Harry Bloomfield]

Robin explained :

Actually, now they do accept cards.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Me too! Less and less now, ever few months at the moment, I go to a cash machine to get some cash out. I mostly shop online, or in physical shops use cards by default, only the places which don't accept cards get my cash.

[Harry Bloomfield]

tim..... explained on 29/03/2015 :

If you pay cash, say a £5 note, you still have to count your change. Checking 30 £3.79's has to be much faster.

[tim.....]

but what if you misplaced one of the 3,79 receipts

tim

[Mike Clarke]

Same here. Definitely plastic in all the supermarkets and "big" names. But when in the local privately run shops where we know the owners it's more like paying a person and I tend to use cash there and try to offer the exact amount to save their change. If you don't have the exact amount for e.g. £4.18 they really appreciate being offered a fiver and a

20p so they can give you £1.02 as a couple of coins instead of a handful of shrapnel.

Quite, shopkeepers get charged by the banks for depositing cash and for changing notes into coins for the float. Round here it's even worse since the last 2 banks in town closed almost simultaneously. It's a 20 mile round trip to bank the takings or get more change and their insurers limit how much cash they can carry in the car.

Now the banks have gone I wouldn't be surprised if the small local shops find plastic is the cheaper option.

[Tim Watts]

Tunbridge Wells is getting a branch of Metrobank (a new amercian bank) which claims to be low on BS, open 7 days a week and low costs.

And a free coin counting machine apparently...

And it's being built slap bang in the middle of town withing walking distance of every small shop.

Have to see if that shakes things up a bit.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes they are. So was rather disappointed when they started taking credit cards, as they will have to be paid for with higher prices. Unless Lidl have negotiated a special rate.

[Capitol]

Has it free car parking? If not, why bother, as few people walk in todays world.

[Nightjar]

I don't keep the small receipts, so couldn't even if I wanted to. All I do with my statements is to check for anything I don't recognise.

[Tim Watts]

The shop keepers walk - because there is no where to park for them either!

[Bob Eager]

Thanks, Tim...number 3 for me then!

I'd say there's also a triangle, bounded by Faversham and Birchington in the north, and a point a bit south of Canterbury. Just a pretty average area, with the occasional pocket of posh.

Notwithstanding the fact that Canterbury is stiff with tourists and students - allegedly the highest proportion of students per head of population in the country. Not surprising with three universities...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. But every village has its idiot.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

All that likely means is you've not explored it.

I can't think of any county in the UK that doesn't have bad bits - as well as good bits.

[Adrian]

I lived within a mile or three of it for three years.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Must be a much smaller county than the one I know, then. ;-)

[Tim Watts]

Sorry Bob - I forgot to include the nice bit that is Canterbury...

Back in WWII Birchington was a very nice area - my grandad moved his family there to lessen the chance of bombings (they had lived in the East End of London). He commuted by train everyday. Back then it was all blokes with bowler hats :)

[Richard]

and the rest of your village applauds you for keeping the seat warm.

[Bob Eager]

People still commute from there - it's only 8 minutes further from London by rail than we are.

I discovered an odd thing while stuck in traffic on the Kilburn High Road a couple of years ago. I saw a road sign for a Birchington Road - and on later investigation found several other place names. It turned out that the family that owned that land also owned large swathes of East kent in that area, and named the roads after the places they owned, e.g. Quex (family seat), Kingsgate, Birchington, Acol, Woodchurch...

[michael adams]

For putting money in I'm talking about. A customer woulkd need to be pretty dense not to notice a shower of coins falling into the cup which they have on all machines. Same as they all have a facility for dispensing notes as change.

michael adams

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