Entertainment For Lively Minds
Anybody got change for a Jagger? I'll except two Robbies.
From today, Matthew Boulton and James Watt have joined the range of people from the past whose portraits are found on British currency. Following a long process of selection, design and manufacture, the new £50 banknote is in circulation, with the industrialist and engineer as the first dual portrait produced on a Bank of England note. (What's a £50 note? - Ed.)
The Bank of England publishes a list of the names of people who the public deem to be suitable for appearing on banknotes. Some of those who have been nominated, but have yet to make the grade, are The Beatles, Sir Jimmy Savile, Mick Jagger, John Cleese, Robbie Williams and Sir Terry Wogan. Historical nominations include Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and Admiral Lord Nelson.
Commemorative banknotes have appeared in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Three times Open Golf Championship winner Jack Nicklaus made it onto a £5 note. George Best also appeared on a £5 note and it proved so popular that the limited edition of one million sold out in 10 days.
NAMES SUGGESTED BY THE PUBLIC FOR USE ON BANK OF ENGLAND BANKNOTES:-
www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/banknote_names.pdf
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Is there a rule about not putting live people on banknotes?
I seem to remember there's such a rule on stamps (with one obvious exception)
Ah but
Remember the furore when It was discovered that a live person was included on a stamp a few years back? It was the Freddie Mercury stamp and Roger Taylor could be seen on the drums in the background. I bet Kate Mossman got a batch of them and spent the evening licking the backside (and sticking them in her album).
Robbie Williams?
For fuck's sake...
would it be easier to bar anyone from the 20th & 21st centuries?
then at least there would be some historical perspective...
This would get my vote
Everyone would think...
it was David Hepworth.
Serious suggestion - David Hume
Excellent In Our Time podcast recently about him, which mentioned that this is the 300th anniversary of his birth.
One of the giants of philosophy, whose stature has increased over the centuries and who informs much philosophical debate even today.
But most of all, we know that "David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel". So, reason enough surely?
Commemorative Banknotes
This seems like a really good idea, a bit like commemorative crowns... or stamps. Almost all of them would stay out of circulation. It's like a licence to print money!!
Catherine Zeta Jones
And the higher the note the less she's wearing...
(Harry Enfield - Is That What You Want?)
The new Twunty Pound note
You too can own a genuine banknote with Bono's face on it and a hologram of, bassist, Adam Clayton's penis on the back!
A double-super-deluxe edition comes in its own paving-slab-sized box, containing the charter to an African village that you will be required to feed using the rice paddy provided. Also includes Angela Merkel's phone number, the hem of a T-shirt worn by Bono and AN ACTUAL LEMON that used to be a potato before it was transformed into AN ACTUAL LEMON by Bono's healing touch.
The obvious choice.