It's just going to be a shortish blog this time because I have this inexplicable urge to write something, yet I can thing of nothing too exciting to write it on. So I thought I'd revisit last Saturday's unfortunate visit to the Glenkinchie distillery, and my observations of local life on the journey.
Glenkinchie is the nearest distillery to Edinburgh, and Glenkinchie is famously called the Edinburgh malt. It's also one of only three lowland whiskys still in production, the other two being Bladnoch and Auchentoshan if you're interested. Me and Jon had planned on going to a distillery for a while, so going on this mutually free Saturday was a good shout. To cut a long story short, the place was shut. Nobody knew why, not even the barman at the pub in nearby Pencaitland, so naturally we were disappointed. There was an open backdoor we could have sneaked through, but whisky makers are particularly serious when it comes to trespassers due to the highly secretive nature of their product. We had to make do with the lovely malty aroma coming from that entrance.
Anyhow, what struck me as interesting was how different life seemed to feel out in the East Lothian countryside. I've never had much interest in going there; it looks gloomy and isolated even in the best of weathers, and it happened to be shite that day. However, what I found refreshing was the kind and helpful nature of the people there. We met an elderly lady on the bus who let us know which stop was ours and told the driver for us. She also advised us on where to find a taxi to finish the journey from Pencaitland to Glenkinchie as she felt it was a long way for us to walk. Furthermore, when we couldn't get a taxi and just started walking there, a car stopped over and the couple who were in it offered us a lift. It was really nice of these people to help us out, as we never asked any of them for help; they just gave it to us. Although my formerly rural life in Fife wasn't especially filled with people like this, there were the occasional standouts which lent an air of familiarity to East Lothian I haven't experienced since my move to exclusively urban surroundings.
Anyhow, I'm back in the city again. There are no doubt many helpful kind people here in Edinburgh, but you just wouldn't know it. Most people are too stressed out by their own lives to really care about others. I'm not even going to pretend that I'm a champion of generosity and caring in the heartless city. It's just the way it is in the big towns. Here we have all the corporations, banks, universities i.e. busy stressful places to be. We may be in a densely populated area, but there's too many individual things going on for people to hold eachother's attention. You have to find community exclusively amongst your friends and family. Out there in the sparsely populated countryside, most people seem to get to know each other very well.
I'm not championing community here. I never much thought about it before. However the friendly nature of the local Pencaitlanders and Glenkinchie-ers contrasted with what I'm used to, so I thought I'd bring it up. And it seems like I've rambled on long enough to have a fair sized post after all. Sorry about that, I know you wanted a quick read and I didn't give you one.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Sunday, 16 January 2011
It's time for change
Money doesn't buy you happiness they say. Maybe they just didn't have the right change.
It seems that in a lot of cases it's never about how much money you have, but in fact how much change you have. A £10 pound note, for instance, is not as useful as a £5 note, four £1 coins, 50p, 20p, 10p, 3 5ps, 2 2ps and a 1p or some variant. This is always the case with smaller purchases and I'm fine with that. It's efficient. Larger purchases validate the use of a £20 note in the eyes of most and that's also fine. However sometimes you've just been from the cash machine and all you have is a £20 or 2 £10s or something like that, so you need to break it down. Most often you'll be fine and the shopkeeper won't bat an eyelid. However sometimes it can be a nuisance for all involved.
Every now and again you'll be asked if you have something smaller to pay with. After all, buying a can of Irn Bru with a twenty seems a bit much. But that's reality much of the time. We can't go about expecting folk to feel guilty and then start buying spare butter and some extra bread they thought they might need just because they want to justify their use of a twenty by making a more wholsome purchase. It's maybe not dreadfully common, but I've acted this stupid way in the past, and I'm sure many other people do it too.
It's all because the world seems to operate on change. I'm not going to suggest an alternative, I'm just going to moan about the current situation. The person behind the counter will ask if you have anything smaller, not so much because it takes more effort to divide a twenty in their head, but because the change in the cash register is running low and they need more. I've worked in a shop and it's always handy to be given loose change instead of having to give it away all the time, and then run to the office to stock up on ones and twos. I said I wasn't going to suggest alternatives, but despite being no expert on money, I don't see why we couldn't just get rid of 1p and 2p, and things costing £#.99 and other such stupidity. We can keep the silvers because we do need to have things with a price between whole pounds.
Buses are where change is most annoying, and they are in fact the reason I've decided to write about change at all. Whereas in the shops they prefer smaller change for small purchases, in many cases change is absolutely compulsory on the bus. Many drivers are already on the path to the dark side and seeing a £10 or a £20 makes them want to strike the passenger down with all of their hatred. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but they will inform in a typical grumpy Scottish voice that you "dinnae get change on this bus son", clearly raging about how having to explain this to the passenger has disrupted their watertight schedule, well the one in their head. The stagecoach buses I used to get from Fife to Dundee were lenient on notes. Fivers usually covered the cost of my journey so they were happily accepted. Tenners visibly annoyed drivers usually, as it required more effort to get the bag of pounds out and count my change. Don't bother with a twenty though; you'll be out on your arse.
It's the city buses that bring my piss to a boil. They're the ones that require change to be perfect as they "dinnae give change on this bus son". It's not to say that you can't give them whatever you happen to have as long as it's more than the fare. It's just that you won't see any of it back. Too bad if you only have a tenner. So to get that correct change, you may often have to do what I do and go to the nearest newsagents or whatever and buy anything cheap enough to get a lot of change from, like a packet of crisps for instance. I can guarantee that whatever you buy, you'll not really want it. It was just a rushed purchase because you had to. I don't imagine many people plan in advance with regards to change. "Oh I can't buy this milk today as it uses up too much of the potential change I may need for a bus." If you don't have time to go to a shop to break up that tenner before the bus gets there, consider a taxi. May work out cheaper.
I hate change, I really really do. It's not handy having so many coppers that wearing a belt is essential to keep your trousers from falling down. It's so fiddly as well. When you've just been handed a fiver and a bunch of change, and the queue all the way to the back wall is full of angry impatient people, you just don't feel like you have the time and space to put everything into your wallet properly. The result is you end up pocketing the lot, slinking off to an out of the way place and sorting out your wallet where it doesn't delay the queue any further.
My closing advice is, where possible, use a credit/debit card, and don't get buses.
It seems that in a lot of cases it's never about how much money you have, but in fact how much change you have. A £10 pound note, for instance, is not as useful as a £5 note, four £1 coins, 50p, 20p, 10p, 3 5ps, 2 2ps and a 1p or some variant. This is always the case with smaller purchases and I'm fine with that. It's efficient. Larger purchases validate the use of a £20 note in the eyes of most and that's also fine. However sometimes you've just been from the cash machine and all you have is a £20 or 2 £10s or something like that, so you need to break it down. Most often you'll be fine and the shopkeeper won't bat an eyelid. However sometimes it can be a nuisance for all involved.
Every now and again you'll be asked if you have something smaller to pay with. After all, buying a can of Irn Bru with a twenty seems a bit much. But that's reality much of the time. We can't go about expecting folk to feel guilty and then start buying spare butter and some extra bread they thought they might need just because they want to justify their use of a twenty by making a more wholsome purchase. It's maybe not dreadfully common, but I've acted this stupid way in the past, and I'm sure many other people do it too.
It's all because the world seems to operate on change. I'm not going to suggest an alternative, I'm just going to moan about the current situation. The person behind the counter will ask if you have anything smaller, not so much because it takes more effort to divide a twenty in their head, but because the change in the cash register is running low and they need more. I've worked in a shop and it's always handy to be given loose change instead of having to give it away all the time, and then run to the office to stock up on ones and twos. I said I wasn't going to suggest alternatives, but despite being no expert on money, I don't see why we couldn't just get rid of 1p and 2p, and things costing £#.99 and other such stupidity. We can keep the silvers because we do need to have things with a price between whole pounds.
Buses are where change is most annoying, and they are in fact the reason I've decided to write about change at all. Whereas in the shops they prefer smaller change for small purchases, in many cases change is absolutely compulsory on the bus. Many drivers are already on the path to the dark side and seeing a £10 or a £20 makes them want to strike the passenger down with all of their hatred. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but they will inform in a typical grumpy Scottish voice that you "dinnae get change on this bus son", clearly raging about how having to explain this to the passenger has disrupted their watertight schedule, well the one in their head. The stagecoach buses I used to get from Fife to Dundee were lenient on notes. Fivers usually covered the cost of my journey so they were happily accepted. Tenners visibly annoyed drivers usually, as it required more effort to get the bag of pounds out and count my change. Don't bother with a twenty though; you'll be out on your arse.
It's the city buses that bring my piss to a boil. They're the ones that require change to be perfect as they "dinnae give change on this bus son". It's not to say that you can't give them whatever you happen to have as long as it's more than the fare. It's just that you won't see any of it back. Too bad if you only have a tenner. So to get that correct change, you may often have to do what I do and go to the nearest newsagents or whatever and buy anything cheap enough to get a lot of change from, like a packet of crisps for instance. I can guarantee that whatever you buy, you'll not really want it. It was just a rushed purchase because you had to. I don't imagine many people plan in advance with regards to change. "Oh I can't buy this milk today as it uses up too much of the potential change I may need for a bus." If you don't have time to go to a shop to break up that tenner before the bus gets there, consider a taxi. May work out cheaper.
I hate change, I really really do. It's not handy having so many coppers that wearing a belt is essential to keep your trousers from falling down. It's so fiddly as well. When you've just been handed a fiver and a bunch of change, and the queue all the way to the back wall is full of angry impatient people, you just don't feel like you have the time and space to put everything into your wallet properly. The result is you end up pocketing the lot, slinking off to an out of the way place and sorting out your wallet where it doesn't delay the queue any further.
My closing advice is, where possible, use a credit/debit card, and don't get buses.
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