Alioth's Journal: Rule Britannia... or not?

Good grief. The amount of assinine bleating over the new coin designs for the UK would be hilarious, if it wasn't so sad. If you don't live in or near Britain, to precis: the Royal Mint has just unveiled the new designs for the 'tails' side of all UK coins, the first wholesale change since decimalisation that got started in 1968. The new design shows the Royal Coat of Arms, in fragments on the sub £1 denominations (so if you lay all the coins out in the right order, you get a full coat of arms), and the complete coat of arms on the £1 coin. (The £2 coin is unchanged).

The amount of shrill whining from the permanently offended middle Englanders are hilarious. Their particular bugbear is the disappearance of Britannia from the reverse of the 50p. They keep going on about "how the new coins are erasing Britishness", such as this comment on the Telegraph newspaper's website by reader Jan Hull, "Why is anything British such a sin?? I am dumbfounded, and why change it anyway??" (complete with multiple question marks).

Firstly, don't these dorks understand that the Coat of Arms is _quintessentially_ British? Secondly, these people moan and whine if you change anything at all, and then they go on about how every change is about "eliminating Britishness to be overtaken by Europe" or other some such nonsense, or an outburst of blatant xenophobia, such as Telegraph reader John Bull's comment, "As this is quite obviously yet another preparation to remove all trace of our heritage in readiness for the complete takeover by the EU, I suggest the following design would be appropriate for all obverses :- An embossed and raised nuclear mushroom cloud surrounded by the unholy ring of EU Stars, with a faintly etched nazi swastika as background to please Frau Merkel. Needless to say - I am totally disgusted by this further proposed treason and debasement of our coinage."

What an idiot.

I suspect these whiners probably also moaned about decimilisation replacing the stupid and illogical old LSD money (that's pounds, shillings and pence, not drugs) and they probably moan about having to use metric.

Anyway, what do I care. Our 50p coin has pictures of motorbikes on the reverse.

I'm looking forward to arranging the UK coins into the coat of arms when they make it over here. I think it's a very nice design, and refreshes the UK coinage. In any case, Britannia will be in circulation for decades, the old 50p isn't being withdrawn.

Euro

[Tsunayoshi]

If you would all go to the Euro like most of the rest of Europe, you could get all the bitching done in one fell swoop :)

I'm not European, so it is not my history being assimilated, but as a very occasional tourist, it is very nice to be able to cross borders and use the same currency.

I'll miss

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The leek.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I'll miss The leek.

Funny you should mention that, there's some bloke with a leek tied to his head looking for you...