As someone who lives in the United Kingdom, what is the most ridiculous thing you have witnessed a tourist do? <https://www.quora.com/As-someone-who-lives-in-the-United-Kingdom-what-is-the-most-ridiculous-thing-you-have-witnessed-a-tourist-do> [image: Jeff Martinson] <https://www.quora.com/profile/Jeff-Martinson> Jeff Martinson <https://www.quora.com/profile/Jeff-Martinson>, A keen amateur photographer
<https://www.quora.com/#> There is one thing that tourists do that I always find funny is to try and use something that no sane local would dream of using. It’s something that is perfectly legal and to an outsider might seem perfectly acceptable. It is something that marks you out instantly as an outsider, as a pain in the arse, as *one of them.* It is this, the humble £50 note. When I was 14 or so, I spent two weeks getting some work experience at a local museum. My job was to sit on HMS Victory, right at the exit of the tour, and man a little stall that sold a selection of books, postcards, and other little odds and ends. One fine day I was sitting there, trying my best to slog through *The Lord of the Rings* (and well done to anyone who can read it; Tolkien was a fine world builder, but a terrible story teller), when a rather large American gentleman came up to me. ‘How much is this pencil?’ he asked. ‘Fifty pence,’ I replied, ‘would you like a bag?’ ‘No thanks,’ he said, handing me a note, ‘I think I can manage.’ I looked at what he had handed me; it was a £50 note, as fresh and as crisp as if he had just printed it himself, save for the almost razor sharp crease down the middle. I was taken aback, did he want one pencil, or one hundred? There was a part of me that was tempted to tell him that he had just given me a fifty pence note, which would have given me a tidy little profit of £49.50, but I decided against it. ‘I’m sorry sir,’ I said, ‘but I can’t accept that.’ ‘Wadda ya mean? It’s legal tender!’ ‘Well I know that, but I don’t have the change. I’ve only got a float of £10.’ By this point he had started to go slightly red in the face. ‘Well I want this pencil, and I’m trying to pay for it. It’s not my fault if you won’t take my money. I wanna talk to the boss’ Now, like I said, at the time of this I was about fourteen, still in school, and about halfway through my two weeks of unpaid work experience. I was new to the world of work. ‘Well he’s at the main shop. It’s about a ten minute walk away, over there’ I said, pointing to the main shop. ‘That’s fine,’ he said, ‘I’ll wait.’ ‘Wait for what?’ ‘Well, for your boss to get here’ Well, in that case he’d be waiting a long time then. ‘Well, he’s not going to come. He doesn’t know you want to see him’ ‘Well,’ he said, leaning in close, ‘why don’t you go and tell him?’ Now, I would have thought that the reason for me not going would have been obvious, but clearly not. ‘Well I can’t just leave the stall here, can I?’ ‘Look,’ he said, now even closer, ‘I want a pencil, and I have money. What are you going to do about it?’ Just then, one of the tour guides came over to see what was going on. ‘Is there a problem here?’ I explained what was going on, and then the tour guide took the American gentleman to one side, and politely explained that, while a £50 note might be perfectly legal tender, he was going to have a very hard time spending it, and he would be much better off heading to the nearest bank to change it down. Also, it’s normally seen as poor form to shout at children, especially children who are not your own. Most people in the UK will very rarely see a £50 note, and I know a lot of shops that refuse to accept them. They are a pain in the arse. If you’ve only got a small float (for those of you who don’t know, a float is an amount of change that you start off with at the beginning of the day so that you can make up change before you’ve had many cash transactions), they can wipe it out in one hit, and they are so unfamiliar that many people find it hard to tell if they are counterfeit or not. At work, I tend not to accept them unless I know that I have already taken at least £50 in cash that day, otherwise I’ll be unable to cash up at the end of my shift. Most days I’ll not take any cash at all, and so if I end up stuck with a £50 I’d have to pay in too much, leaving me short for the next day. Just because something is legal tender, do not expect it to be accepted. With best wishes S Chander -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to thatha_patty+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
