While in the US, if the police find a large amount of money on you they can take it under the legalised robbery "civil forfeiture" rules without proving that you have committed any crime at all. How enlightened!

Yeah, there was a proposal to formally close down the UK cheque-clearing system in 2018, but enough of a fuss was made that the plan was abandoned in 2011. That said, I can't remember using a cheque in the last 10 years, and I have no idea where my cheque book is now.

Ironic that this is happening in the first country in Europe that issued paper money (1661).

Yes, in the UK the limits are:
1p and 2p coins - to a maximum of 20p.
5p, 10p coins - to a maximum of £5.
20p, 25p (commemorative), 50p coins - to a maximum of £10.
£1, £2, £5 (commemorative), £20 (bullion), £100 (bullion) coins - to any value (though the bullion coins will be worth more than face value anyway).

In the Republic of Ireland, no-one other than the Central Bank of Ireland is obliged to accept more than 50 coins in total, of any denomination, in one transaction.

So? In Scotland this year the SNP won 50% of the votes cast (35.52% of the total electorate) and 94.9% of the seats. It's just the way the cookie crumbles when you have more than two parties competing for votes and the candidate who gets one more vote than another wins.

In the UK, paying by credit card gives you more consumer protection rights than if you pay by debit card or cash, if the amount is over £100. This is because the credit card company is jointly liable with the seller if the goods are defective, so if you're sold a lemon you just claim the money back from the card company.

Actually, the 1 oz gold Britannia IS legal tender and has a face value of £100. Of course, you'd have to be insane to spend one at that price...

The bloke was an idiot. Apart from camcordering a movie in a theatre rather than pirating a better-quality DVD, he was stupid enough to continue selling copies after he'd been arrested and showed his contempt for the legal system, showing no (not even fake) remorse. He was asking to have the book thrown at him, and it was. Anyway, this is Britain we're talking about - even though he was sentenced to 33 months, if he's a good boy in prison he'll be automatically paroled after half the sentence is served.

Where do you get that "can't board anonymously in Europe"? I do at least once a week, and millions do every day. The only check is that I'm carrying a valid ticket which I may have paid cash for 5 minutes before getting on the train with no ID (though long distance travel is considerably cheaper if you buy your ticket at least the day before).

Except that time spent in the country on a student visa doesn't count towards permanent residency.

The UK coinage is perfectly logical:
Smallest value coins, 1p, 2p - round copper-coloured (actually now copper-plated steel) in increasing size.
Smallish value coins, 5p, 10p - round silver-coloured in increasing size.
Medium value coins, 20p, 50p - rounded heptagonal silver-coloured in increasing size.
High value coins: £1 round, gold-coloured very thick coin; £2 round, thin, bimetallic gold/silver coloured coin; £5 commemorative - round huge silver coloured coin.

And the redesign a few years ago was the first time the designs on the reverse had been changed in over 40 years - it was time for a change; the queens' portrait of course has changed several times as she's got older, but the same happened with Queen Victoria.

Err, no. When you have a redenomination you apply the same factor to all denominations of notes and coins. When Turkey did this to the lira in 2005, they simply chopped six zeroes off everything (they'd been preparing for this by printing notes with the last six zeroes in a different colour, or smaller figures on coins). When 2005 came around, instead of printing 20,000,000 lira notes (then worth about $13), they printed 20 "new lira" notes instead, and four years later when everyone was used to the new values they dropped the "new" and went back to talking of their currency as liras.

Yep, an Irish Pound was worth €1.37.

Yes, you also had 2.50 guilder coins, and 25 and 250 guilder notes, which were a bit strange when you first came across them but you soon got used to them - I remember wondering what on earth I was going to do with the two 250 fl notes I was given at the GWK at Amsterdam CS once, but strangely enough my hotel had no trouble accepting them!

A few corrections here. The half crown (a very nice coin to receive when you were a kid - you knew your relatives really liked you when they gave you one!) was actually withdrawn in 1969, the same year as the old halfpenny. The 50p coin was introduced and the old ten-shilling note withdrawn in 1969. Decimal 5p and 10p coins were issued from 1968 in place of old one and two shilling coins, which were the same size and weight and which remained in circulation until the 5p and 10p were reduced in size in 1990/1992. The Crown (5-shilling) coin was only issued as a commemorative coin and didn't normally circulate; they continued to issue coins of this (huge) size as commemorative 25p coins until 1990, and since then commemorative coins of this size are still sometimes issued, but with a face value of £5. The decimal halfpenny was withdrawn on 31.12.1984.

20p coins were introduced in 1982, and £1 coins in 1983, with the Bank of England ceasing to issue £1 notes in 1984 (there were also large, thick £2 coins occasionally issued from this time, similar to the £1 coin, but they were commemoratives and rarely found in circulation). £2 circulating bimetallic coins were issued from 1997 (the earliest coins are dated 1996 but introduction was delayed because London Transport couldn't modify their ticket machines in time).

1p and 2p coins are the same weight and diameter as when they were first issued in 1971, but they are slightly thicker as they're now made of copper-plated steel, since fluctuations in the world price of copper occasionally made them worth twice their face value for their metal.