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If money - actual coinage and notes - is any kind of measure of cultural health: then England is finished.
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1. Five pound notes feature an unknown nonentity called Elizabeth Fry...
Elizabeth who? Who Fry? - apparently a prison reformer, whatever that might be.
In other words, the government is using money as a form of 'consciousness raising' to promote the 'achievements' of... well, 'A Woman'.
(Florence Nightingale had already been used on money - at least everyone had heard of her.)
Thus EF is celebrated alongside other British people of achievement featured on notes such as Isaac Newton, Shakespeare, the Duke of Wellington, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin... Elizabeth Fry !
Convinced?
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2. The small denomination coins have been recently re-designed in a way that is inefficient, ugly, pretentious in a childish way, in fact just plain vulgar.
Is this what national coins of the realm, legal tender, ought to look like?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_pound_sterling
Using each coin to make part of a larger design!!!
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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3. The coins are so badly manufactured that different versions or dates of coins, supposedly of the same value, vary widely in size, shape, thickness, edging.
Slot machines nowadays reject about half of coins because they are ... well, rubbish.
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Put you hand in your pocket and pull-out some money.
There it is for you to see, undeniable: the decline of England.
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(Oh yes, and why were the smallest denomination coins of 1p and 2p not abolished when the currency was 'redesigned'? The currency has so inflated since decimal coinage was introduced in 1971, that the 5p coin in 2011 is worth les than 1/2p (halfpenny) which was the smallest denomination coin of 1971. So the 1p coins which are still in frequent use - especially as so many things are priced at x pounds 99 pence - is worth less than 20 percent of the smallest denomination coin of 1971...)
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