A Brief, Parochial Rant About Australian Coinage

I don't make many claims for the UK. It's cold, it's wet and the national culture seems to be devolving so that it now revolves around a particularly grim brand of alcopop scented joyless hedonism.  One thing we do well, however, is making money.  To clarify, I'm not talking about the aquisition of money, which increasingly seems to be the sole preserve of a particular breed of chinless moral degenerates, but the creation of physical tokens of nominal amounts.

Australian money, by contrast, is retarded.  The notes aren't too bad.  They're made of plastic which means that they're essentially indestructible.   Unfortunately it also means that they're incredibly slippy, which isn't necessarily a quality you want in your notes.

The coins, however, are a massive pain in the arse.  For some reason they have not only opted to make the highest denomination, the $2, about the size of a tiddlywink, but also make it almost exactly the same size of the 5 cent piece, making it impossible to tell whether your pocket full of change is enough to buy a meal or half a peanut.  At the other end of the scale, the 20 and 50 cent pieces are both the size of a baby's head and could probably kill a man if thrown hard enough.  The end result is that at the end of any night out you have pockets so loaded with shrapnel that your trousers are in constant danger of falling down.

May soon be glad of any shrapnel I have though.  Still don't have a job.  Went for an interview for a waiter's position the other day.  This basically consisted of them throwing an apron at me and telling me to do the job.  As the place was absolutely heaving and I've never done the job before I basically stood there like a stunned rabbit, trying not to let my bottom lip wobble.  I don't think they'll be calling me back.

Bob, as predicted, is now gainfully employed.  In fact, he has been offered two jobs, one starting shortly after the other finishes.  Rather sweetly he made a point of asking if I was okay as I've been killing myself with worry over the work issue and he hasn't.  Having known him most my life and not being a sour faced bastard who begrudges others their success I assured him this was unnecessary.

In other news, went to the aquarium.  Unlike the zoo, they did have penguins.  Tiny, little fairy penguins.  They were awesome and I wanted to take one home, but the man wouldn't let me.

Love and Fishes

David