Judging from Chelsea's recent European Cup semi-final, your referees are of a similar standard, too. 😀
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Quintessentially British!
- Thread starter BigJim
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Judging from Chelsea's recent European Cup semi-final, your referees are of a similar standard, too. 😀
Don't forget the 1970 FIFA "Whose Centre Forward Can Fit Most Custard In His Underpants Trophy, and the 1974 UEFA "Whose Manager Has The Knobbliest Knees" competition.
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InspectorJapp
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Well, yes. But on the other hand Chelsea deserves all the dung they can get.
And Drogba, that steaming pile, certainly deserves it.
InspectorJapp
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And the 1996 "Most ironic championshipslogan and accompaning song"-award.
General Zod
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Dare I mention Benny Hill? 
Mister Scruff
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Dare I mention Benny Hill?
Get out. And stay out.
They surely do; I could quite happily listen to a Hebridean girl reading from the phonebook for hours on end <3 <3
Dare I mention Benny Hill?
Ah, the "Guv'nor". Twenty five years in show business, and always telling the same joke.
You know... *leans forward conspiratorially and lowers voice*... I have actually seen the original seaside postcard where he originally got it. Absoloute truth, I swear!
It was? Deny the twin facts of...
a) We invented the fucking game
and...
b) The place where something is invented can metaphorically be called it's "home"?
Can't argue with that, I can't stand the fuckers. Shame they couldn't lose normally though. Still, it saves on having to bribe referees to be biased when you've got ones with worse eyesight that Ely from Last of the Summer Wine around who'll do it for free.
General Zod
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Mister Scruff
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Fawkes. Guy Fawkes.
Fun fact: His name was actually Guido Fawkes, but he was not an Italian-American. One of his co-conspirators was called Richard Elkesbottom.
And Drogba is a bastard.
Mephistopheles
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How on earth did pricetags in shops look? "Strawberries, 200 farthings, 5 bob and 60 threepenny bits per ounce!"?
And road signs? Did they mention what kind of mile the distance was to the next village?
Mephistopheles
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Yes, but what do you think of Guus Hiddink?
So glad you asked all these...
I'm assuming you're not American going by your sig gif, but I don't actually know where you're from, so if you'll forgive me, I'll do this in idiotspeak mate. No inference intended though, okey-day?
For some reason when Americans use what they call a "pound sign", the one they use is this... #. We call that a hash mark (nothing to do with the drug) and it most definitely does not mean the British pound Sterling to us. The sign we use is this... £.
Well back in the pre-1971 days of imperial coinage, the pound sign was almost the same, but it didn't have the central cross bar, so it looked kinda like a lower case L done in joined up writing, but without anything joined on.
If someone wanted to write a kind of shorthand for pounds, shillings (a "bob" was slang for a shilling) and pence, they would put "lsd". (Again, nothing to do with a drug.)
However, if you had a price tag on something in a shop, say something that cost eight shillings and six pence, the shillings and pence of the item would be indicated as 8/ 6-. Alternatively, they would just use the letters, so it would be 8s 6d. For some reason the pence were indicated by a d, probably from a latin word for a small coin. I must remember to ask Stephen Fry if I ever meet him.
The penny was the basic unit of currency, there were twelve of those to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound. Thus twelve times twenty equalled two hundred and forty.
I collect old English coins, so I know just exactly how many there were, at least in the latter part of the twentieth century.
The farthing: A quarter of one old penny. Small copper thing with a bird on the reverse (on the front all coins bore the head of the monarch at the time the coin was minted, naturally), I think a wren. Minted between 1672 and 1956.
The halfpenny (pronounced ha-penny): Copper coin about half as big again as the farthing and depicting a three-masted ship like a sloop or a small frigate on the reverse. Minted between 1672 and 1967.
The penny: About half as big again as the ha'penny and with a depiction of Brittania on the back, sitting on a rock with a trident in hand, a shield nearby and a lighthouse in the background. Kinda underpinned the role of Britain as the world's dominant sea power for three or four hundred years. (And thus, the world's most dominant superpower, if such a thing could exist pre-nukes.) Minted between 1797 and 1967.
The threepenny bit (pronounced thruppeny): Two different coins were in circulation. The oldest design was a small, silver thing, about two thirds the size of a florin, with the King’s Crown and the numeral 3 on the reverse. Minted between 1551 and 1944.
The later version was a twelve sided coin, with a portcullis on the back and coloured rather like brass. Minted from 1937 to 1967.
The sixpence: Silver coin roughly the same size of a farthing, with some sort of four-flowered plant on the back. I think it’s probably a combination of a rose (symbolic of England), a thistle (Scotland), a leek (Wales) and a four-leafed clover (Ireland). Minted from 1551 to 1967.
The shilling: silver coin a weeny tadge smaller than a ha’penny. On the reverse is a shield bearing the three lions of Richard the First, surmounted by the King’s Crown. Minted from 1548 to 1967.
The florin (two shilling piece): large silver coloured coin, with a rather complicated design on the back. A Tudor rose is central and surrounding it is a circular single plant sprouting the flowers of the thistle, four-leafed clover and leek. Minted from 1849 to 1967.
Half crown (worth two and a half shillings): Huge silver coin, with a shield containing the quartered insignia of a harp, the Scottish lion and two sets of the three lions rampant in opposite corners, surmounted by a King’s Crown and (in the case of mine, which was minted in 1957) E on one side of the shield and R on the other (Elizabeth Regina). Minted from 1551 to 1967.
There were also of course the crown (five shilling piece) and the golden guinea (twenty one shilling gold coin), but I don’t have either of those in my collection, so I have no information on either of them. The golden guinea was a somewhat obsolete coin even in the 1950’s though, pre-dating the Victorian era.
Notes-wise we also had the ten shilling note, the £1 note and then £5 and £10. I don’t think we had anything higher than that in general circulation, but I’m not certain.
Some of the oldies in this country still refer to 5 new pence as “a bob” (5 pence being a twentieth of the new, decimalized pound, as 12 old pence was a twentieth of the imperial one of 240 pence), and thus, out of sheer bloody-mindedness, I do too, despite only being thirty one years old and born seven years after we went decimal.
Nowadays we have the 1p, 2p, 5p, 20p, 20p, 50p and £1 coins, plus £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes.
Well the two different miles were land miles and nautical miles. A land mile was 1,760 yards and the nautical mile, mainly used by seamen, was a round 2,000 yards. The nautical mile was never used on land, so it was taken for granted that all road signs would be in land miles.
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Hardly something that could be described as quintessentially English, even you you do spell his name right. He was a catholic rebel who tried, with his comrades, to blow up the parliament building, complete with the king inside it.
As history records, they failed miserably and were done to death rather hideously.
InspectorJapp
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Am I the only one who finds the word "farthing" really funny?
Mephistopheles
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So glad you asked all these...
I'm assuming you're not American going by your sig gif, but I don't actually know where you're from, so if you'll forgive me, I'll do this in idiotspeak mate. No inference intended though, okey-day?
For some reason when Americans use what they call a "pound sign", the one they use is this... #. We call that a hash mark (nothing to do with the drug) and it most definitely does not mean the British pound Sterling to us. The sign we use is this... £.
Well back in the pre-1971 days of imperial coinage, the pound sign was almost the same, but it didn't have the central cross bar, so it looked kinda like a lower case L done in joined up writing, but without anything joined on.
If someone wanted to write a kind of shorthand for pounds, shillings (a "bob" was slang for a shilling) and pence, they would put "lsd". (Again, nothing to do with a drug.)
However, if you had a price tag on something in a shop, say something that cost eight shillings and six pence, the shillings and pence of the item would be indicated as 8/ 6-. Alternatively, they would just use the letters, so it would be 8s 6d. For some reason the pence were indicated by a d, probably from a latin word for a small coin. I must remember to ask Stephen Fry if I ever meet him.
The penny was the basic unit of currency, there were twelve of those to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound. Thus twelve times twenty equalled two hundred and forty.
I collect old English coins, so I know just exactly how many there were, at least in the latter part of the twentieth century.
The farthing: A quarter of one old penny. Small copper thing with a bird on the reverse (on the front all coins bore the head of the monarch at the time the coin was minted, naturally), I think a wren. Minted between 1672 and 1956.
The halfpenny (pronounced ha-penny): Copper coin about half as big again as the farthing and depicting a three-masted ship like a sloop or a small frigate on the reverse. Minted between 1672 and 1967.
The penny: About half as big again as the ha'penny and with a depiction of Brittania on the back, sitting on a rock with a trident in hand, a shield nearby and a lighthouse in the background. Kinda underpinned the role of Britain as the world's dominant sea power for three or four hundred years. (And thus, the world's most dominant superpower, if such a thing could exist pre-nukes.) Minted between 1797 and 1967.
The threepenny bit (pronounced thruppeny): Two different coins were in circulation. The oldest design was s small, silver thing, about two thirds the size of a florin, with the King’s Crown and the numeral 3 on the reverse. Minted between 1551 and 1944.
The later version was a twelve sided coin, with a portcullis on the back and coloured rather like brass. Minted from 1937 to 1967.
The sixpence: Silver coin roughly the same size of a farthing, with some sort of four-flowered plant on the back. I think it’s probably a combination of a rose (symbolic of England), a thistle (Scotland), a leek (Wales) and a four-leafed clover (Ireland). Minted from 1551 to 1967.
The shilling: silver coin a weeny tadge smaller than a ha’penny. On the reverse is a shield bearing the three lions of Richard the First, surmounted by the King’s Crown. Minted from 1548 to 1967.
The florin (two shilling piece): large silver coloured coin, with a rather complicated design on the back. A Tudor rose is central and surrounding it is a circular single plant sprouting the flowers of the thistle, four-leafed clover and leek. Minted from 1849 to 1967.
Half crown (worth two and a half shillings): Huge silver coin, with a shield containing the quartered insignia of a harp, the Scottish lion and two sets of the three lions rampant in opposite corners, surmounted by a King’s Crown and (in the case of mine, which was minted in 1957) E on one side of the shield and R on the other (Elizabeth Regina). Minted from 1551 to 1967.
There were also of course the crown (five shilling piece) and the golden guinea (twenty one shilling gold coin), but I don’t have either of those in my collection, so I have no information on either of them. The golden guinea was a somewhat obsolete coin even in the 1950’s though, pre-dating the Victorian era.
Notes-wise we also had the ten shilling note, the £1 note and then £5 and £10. I don’t think we had anything higher than that in general circulation, but I’m not certain.
Some of the oldies in this country still refer to 5 new pence as “a bob” (5 pence being a twentieth of the new, decimalized pound, as 12 old pence was a twentieth of the imperial one of 240 pence), and thus, out of sheer bloody-mindedness, I do too, despite only being thirty one years old and born seven years after we went decimal.
Nowadays we have the 1p, 2p, 5p, 20p, 20p, 50p and £1 coins, plus £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes.
Well the two different miles were land miles and nautical miles. A land mile was 1,760 yards and the nautical mile, mainly used by seamen, was a round 2,000 yards. The nautical mile was never used on land, so it was taken for granted that all road signs would be in land miles.
Well, I live right across the channel. I am very much familiar though with the £ sign; and I had a vague notion of English being as mad as hatters when it comes to measuring anything but I'm surprised at how complicated it really was.
Although I can imagine it's fun to collect all those things. Here in the Netherlands we had the gulden as our main unit of currency and cents being 1/100th of such a gulden. We also had half cent coins, 5 cent (stuiver), 10 cent (dubbeltje), 25 cent (kwartje), 1.5 gulden (daalder), 2.5 gulden (rijksdaalder) and a 5 gulden coin (vijfje). The half cent, cent and daalder became obsolete in the 20th century. There also used to be golden 10 gulden coins but those are very rare.
Mister Scruff
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Yesh, Dutchsh, ijsn't sjhat veerd?
No, he wasn't Irish. Not to my knowledge anyway.
On a serious note, a lot of the time I feel that I cannot express my pride for my country because all too often there are people who immediately put me down for it and remind me of the bad my country has done in it's past, and how they see this country has gone to rat-shit. Does anyone else feel the same?
