On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 01:56:43PM +0000, Sue Spence wrote: > On 13 Feb 2014 09:55, "Dominic Thoreau" <domi...@thoreau-online.net> wrote: [...] >> You'll generally get change from a fiver for *a* pint, but not two. ... > Today I learned that a pint cost about 20p when HHGTTG was written.
The ONS provides all sorts of interesting price data in this spreadsheet: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/consumer-price-indices/december-2013/consumer-price-inflation-reference-tables.xls Given Douglas's unique approach to deadlines, the final manuscript would have been delivered to the BBC in March 1978, several hours before broadcast :) The back of my fag packet reckons that RPI has risen 5.20 times since then. So had beer been tracking RPI, it would be just £1 now. (But we all know that the government figures are a load of bunk and real-world inflation is much higher than the claimed couple of percent.)
