{"id":2166,"date":"2013-06-27T12:40:23","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T12:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=2166"},"modified":"2013-06-28T07:30:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T07:30:22","slug":"inflation-in-north-somerset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=2166","title":{"rendered":"Inflation in North Somerset"},"content":{"rendered":"

The phrase “to spend a penny”, meaning<\/a> to use a public lavatory, has its origins in the use of coin-operated locks on public toilets in the UK. When these were first introduced, the fee for use was normally one penny (1d); and it stayed at that level for decades, well into the second half of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

However, the cost of being caught short and having to use a public lavatory has undergone a massive inflationary rise if a report in today’s Bristol Post<\/a> is to be believed.<\/p>\n

\"picture<\/p>\n

Pictured above is an old English bank note with a face value of 10 shillings; that’s equivalent to 240 pence.<\/p>\n

The Bristol Post report states that people could be charged up to 50p (that’s ten shillings in old money. Ed.<\/em>) to spend a penny in a new block of town centre toilets in Portishead<\/a>, which could cost up to £40,000 to build.<\/p>\n

The Post quotes Portishead Town Council Clerk Jo Duffy as follows on the likely cost of spending a penny:<\/p>\n

There would be a charge levied for using the toilets, which could be up to 50 pence per visit. However the town council is keen to keep the charge at a lower level of around 20 pence if possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even 20 pence for a pee is extortionate, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

This blog has covered the peculiarities of life in North Somerset before now (posts passim<\/em><\/a>) and at least one person leaving a comment on the Post report feels relieved he’s not a resident:<\/p>\n

Every day I wake up and thank the Lord that I don’t live in North Somerset.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phrase “to spend a penny”, meaning to use a public lavatory, has its origins in the use of coin-operated locks on public toilets in the UK. When these were first introduced, the fee for use was normally one penny (1d); and it stayed at that level for decades, well into the second half of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3,17],"tags":[40,16,22],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","category-oddities","tag-bristol","tag-english-usage","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2166"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions\/2174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}