Every 10p currently in circulation has at some time been inside a parking metre.
Due to an ancient loophole in the law it is technically illegal to purchase fruit using coins, bank notes or cheques. Credit cards, watermelons and debit cards are not affected by this law.
50p and 20p coins are shaped as such for the sake of the blind who will only pay using these coins and as such are forever cursed with too much small change.
The half penny of the 70's and 80's (that's the one that is slightly smaller than the current 5p, for you younglings) despite actually being smaller and thinner than the penny, used more metal and weighed twice as much. The cause for this anomaly is currently unknown.
Every other 20p currently in circulation has at some time been inside a parking metre.
The £1 and the original £2 coin used a very specific alloy of metal that was found to be highly resistant to heat. This was chosen to prevent Welsh dragons from melting the money in their fiery breath and so devaluing the currency, now that the £2 is back in circulation and no longer made from this metal however there is a serious risk of a full scale financial dragon invasion. Please, for the sake of the country, petition your MP now demanding that all our coins be fireproofed.
Approximately half of the £5, £10 and £20 notes in circulation have traces of cocaine on them, in fact if you wash around £300, collect and then evaporate off the water you are left with somewhere in the region of £30 worth of grade A 'Columbian talcum powder.' Due to the large amounts of sweat, skin cells, ink and general grime that is also collected this product is known on the streets as 'Compost Coke' because of its brown colour and unpleasant smell. Some of the human debris and dirt can be removed using coffee filter paper and distillation but since this is time consuming the mixture is usually just smoked as it stands, or occasionally squirms. After a few repeat washes to get as much cocaine from the notes as possible the perpetrators usually 'launder' the money simply by paying it into a bank and then withdrawing it from another the following day to avoid suspicion. The process can then be repeated and it is in fact possible for a coke riddled hoodlum to feed their addiction entirely from a small stash of money.
People often talk about there being £1000 and £1 million notes used for exchanges between banks and for country to country repayments after the war, in fact the most valuable British note is currently thought to be worth £5 million due to its tremendous rarity.
The note in question is the result of a printing error in one batch of £5 notes back in 1975 where the image of the Queen was accidentally replaced by that of Attila the Hun, the notorious ruler of the Hunnic Empire. The problem was not spotted until most of the notes had already been circulated, this led to vicious and unfounded rumours of the King of the Hun (by this time quite dead) intending to overthrow the monarchy. The error was never officially admitted by the Bank of England but most of the notes were secretly recovered from banks and destroyed. There are currently 5 specimens in museums around the country and some 50 in the hands of private collectors, there are estimated to be about 20 of these notes still unaccounted for, could they be stashed in some forgotten piggy bank or wallet in your house? Go look. Now, go. No? You don't have any of them? Shame.
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