Incontinent with euronation
by Graham Smith

Freelance journalist Graham Smith, of Mediaworld, takes a close look at a new currency.

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I have been euronating ever since New Year’s Eve and it’s not the drink.

It’s an awful complaint. Just when you think it’s stopped you have to jump up again and head for the bathroom to escape the onslaught from some other source euronating all over the television screen or newspapers.

With it comes a blinding headache as you try to work out how many euros you need to buy a 50p meat pie. Or can you? Spending a penny will, however, be cheaper. It should become one cent which is .63p or will they round it up to five cents, 3.15p , or will we all be left crossing our legs in agony while they make their mind up and spend umpteen million euros installing the new machinery in the loos anyway?

The Daily Mirror led its New Year’s Day edition with “Happy New Euro” and followed it up the day after with a mind blowing story of how one of their reporters managed to buy a coffee on New Year’s Eve with his euros, the first in the UK. He couldn’t of course write about the story for 24 hours until he had sobered up enough from celebrating the arrival of the new currency.

The franc, the lira, the mark, the schilling and the peseta have all gone. The seven new euro notes have designs on them ranging from Mozart to swans. Don’t be surprised if one has Osama bin Laden on, he must be somewhere.

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