RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30478, 27 June 1964, Page 34

RANDOM REMINDER

FLORIN EXCHANGE

A colleague has been claiming that he has been plagued by ill-fortune, in the small things of life, for so long that he sometimes feels like biting the carpet or writing a letter to the paper. The matter worrying him ■ chiefly at the moment is the Australian florin. Most of us complain we are short of coin; he says he has too many. Wherever he goes, apparently, people give him Australian florins in his change. He admits to being short of sight, and feels that the retailers of Christchurch have a highly-tuned instinct which tells them of this, and advises them that here is a chance to unload some of their less desirable coins. He showed us a handful of the things which had, he says, come into his possession within a couple, of days. Once or twice, he had tried to turn over the change in his hand as he received it, hut the cold hostility with which the gesture had been greeted had deterred him.

It would not be so bad, he argues, if he was able to unload the Australian florins as he received them. But in this he never succeeds. He feels that the retailers of Christchurch have a highly-tuned instinct which tells them that here is a fellow who is going to try to palm off Aussie two bobs on them. So they are invariably able to return them, often with a short, cynical laugh which says, inter alia, that they were not born yesterday. There are other things, of course. He has a son at university and naturally the last day for paying examination fees arrived and the son was at home with influenza. So father had to make the payment. It seemed a simple sort of job—but with his luck, it was terrible. He found himself in a long queue consisting almost entirely of pale, bearded young men and pale, black-stockinged young ladies, all of them talking about a life of which he knew nothing,

and, he feels sure, wondering how grandfather had got into the act. He never finds a parking space empty, or a petrol tank filled. He always has to buy the round in which six newcomers have made their appearance knowing full well that as he cracks yet another quid, the change will include a couple of Australian florins.

STARTING MONDAY: The hitherto unpublished war memoirs of Brigadier Jeremy Jonquil, the man the Germans feared more than Churchill, Montgomery and Eisenhower put together. That was while they thought he was on their side. In six exciting parts, "The Scourge of the Naris" wilt be published each day next week. Don’t miss these exciting revelations of war in the air, on the sea and land, and in the secret conclaves of Whitehall 12121