The UK plans to release new bank notes in a few years, which isn’t news at all. Countries do this every once in a while, you know.
Banknotes issued by the Bank of England will soon feature images of wildlife rather than historical figures, following a public consultation on the design of the next set of currency.
There is nothing too trivial to trigger the Right, though. And new we finally have a definition of “woke”!
The Bank of England is replacing Winston Churchill with a picture of a beaver on our bank notes.
This is the definition of woke.
You can always trust Nigel Farage to babble out some ludicrous nonsense.
I, for one, will welcome the new, much prettier UK currency. Can you also replace Farage with a more attractive animal? Something that doesn’t scream “gormless” when displayed?
I thought the definition of “woke” was “anything that suggests that Anglo-Saxon men aren’t the ne plus ultra of human evolution and god’s chosen people”.
I know it’s confusing @1 rickarddavidt.
Previous things I thought woke was:
1. A secret ingredient in tofu.
2. Superheroes saving lives, particularly if the list includes a squirrel among hundreds of humans.
3. Hygiene. Particularly at Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments. (Some people would literally stink themselves up to distract their opponents. They get banished to the Shadow Realm, now.)
4. Returning your shopping cart to one of those bays in the parking lot.
We already have a woman on the £10 note (Jane Austen) and a gay man on the £50 note (Alan Turing), we did just replace the queen with the king though, so I guess the woke balanced out?
If Nigel Farage were an MP in the 1940’s, he would have been of the MPs who tried to remove Winston Churchill as PM.
I expect the woke part is environmentalism, as Britain is currently working on reintroducing the Eurasian Beavers that were hunted to extinction in the 1600’s.
I don’t know why putting Churchill on money is so important to Farage? I would certainly prefer wildlife to dead politicians on my currency.
Nigel Farage is actually a secret Aquaphibian agent: https://gerryanderson.fandom.com/wiki/Surface_Agent_X-2-Zero
Yeah. We’ve still got dead slave owners on our money, so I’d be happy with something much more innocent.
Sadly Farage isn’t gormless, while his face looks gormless at rest he is a clever (unacceptable insult), and to be gormless includes a distinct lack of intelligence.
I’ll start the bidding with: naked mole-rat.
@8, Jazzlet: no no he IS an idiot, but as you point out he’s got one kind of cleverness (just one), a talent for convincing and (yes) seducing those more gormless than himself. An emotional Hamelin’s piper if you will: it works only on idiots of course, but of those there’s an inexhustible supply (to get an idea, look at John Oliver’s series on brexit, a parade of turnipheads). In all other domains he’s hopeless, an eminence of incompetence truly overwhelming to behold.
AND he may be on course for being the next prime minister of the UK. The scept’red isle, sinking fast.
Anyone who labels things woke reflexively and unironically has their own personal and perfectly consistent definition: That which I don’t like. The OP is hardly surprising or news worthy.
Since he was posting to complain about people being “woke”, I guess it makes sense that he used a picture of himself eyes-closed and presumably asleep?
We had something similar the last time Canada updated its passport design (announced three years ago, though only available as of two years ago) and the visa page images went from historical references to nature scenes. Our version of the Right was all ‘why does Justin Trudeau hate Canadian history?!?!’
Admittedly we also had some of that a few years before when we went from the $10 featuring Sir John A. MacDonald; to a 2017 sesquicentennial bill that had Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, Agnes Macphail (first female member of Parliament), and James Gladstone (first First Nations member of the Senate); to the modern bill from 2018 onward featuring Viola Desmond, a black businesswoman who was also a civil rights activist.
Still don’t have a bank note featuring King Charles here; the new Canadian $20 bills including him aren’t expected to enter circulation until next year. Coins with his face have already been in circulation for a couple of years, of course; coin design is inherently a lot simpler than bills as they’re smaller and have less possible detail, not to mention that it’s a lot more work to try to counterfeit coins than it is bills, so the security requirements aren’t the same.
“I’m printing polecats on currency for peace!”
“I’m printing polecats on currency for peace!”
…avoid the “scratch and sniff” versions.
I think NF resembles a jawless lamprey. Or, possibly a hagfish.
Personally, I miss the Charles Darwin 10 pound notes that were withdrawn years ago. Maybe they could bring him back in spirit with Galapagos finches on one of the new notes?
Winston Churchill was a racist arsehole responsible for entirely avoidable famines in the Indian subcontinent. He was hated by thousands in his own lifetime. Just because he happened to be Prime Minister when Russia won the Second World War for us the suppurating Torysphere decided to make him their poster boy. Good riddance to the fat, balding old wanker and welcome to our new Castorine overlords.
To mollify Nigel, His Majesty’s Royal Mint has agreed to give pride of place to Farridge’s recognisably handsome visage on the new £0.45 banknote.
(For non-UK readers, that would be the nine-shilling note, or “nine bob” in the vernacular. Readers may also infer that Farridge will not realise the reference to fraudulent currency.)
But Galápagos finches are, by definition, Not British.
What could be more Darwinian and British than the noble, ubiquitous, promiscuous barnacle?
(I am nearly certain that barnacle collection prompted Darwin to write: “I hate every wave of the ocean” (letter to W.D. Fox on 15 February 1836))
Spotted here:
https://bsky.app/profile/skwinnicki.bsky.social/post/3meopj3cans24
Actually, in 1836, Darwin was still on the Beagle. So that might have been literal seasickness, or homesickness, or both.
Although he did collect his first barnacles in 1835, sez WikiP.
Discussion over the table about this and eventually….
Me: “Although I sort of thought that all the bank notes actually had just the Queen– or King– on them.”
Spouse (sheepishly): “So did I”.
So a bit of googling and …. they are talking about the BACK sides of the notes for foop’s sake!
I mean I can see, if one’s values are different from mine, getting your pancakes in a twist about doing away with the King on the front (or in the US getting rid of the dead white men), but the backs…. The backs are always a changing design and Winston Churchill has only the back of the 5 since 2016. That’s not even a decade.
woozy: I’d certainly rather see a beaver’s backside on those notes than Winston Churchill’s.
(Oh, and now that you mention it, I’d never seen Winnie on any notes at any time I’d been to the UK.)
Still waiting for the definitions of “identity politics”, “cancel culture” and “specified complexity.” Something to do with beavers?
@woozy “The backs are always a changing design and Winston Churchill has only the back of the 5 since 2016.”
And Elizabeth Fry was on the 5 before Churchill (2001-2016). I suspect Farage would consider her ‘woke’
The other non-royal real women on Bank of England banknotes were Florence Nightingale (10 between 1975-1992) and Jane Austen (10 starting 2017).
Current Royal Bank of Scotland notes have Nan Shepherd/mackerel, Mary Somerville/otters, Catherine Cranston/red squirrels, Flora Stevenson/Osprey https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/subjects/banknotes/current-issue-banknotes.html
I suspect we should push for British spiders. I note that webs have the finicky details that the engravers like to make counterfeiting hard.
I suspect we should push for British spiders. I note that webs have the finicky details that the engravers like to make counterfeiting hard.
But then they’d need an expert like PZ to verify all those details, and he’s too woke to be trusted!
“Royal Bank of Scotland”
Don’t forget The Bank of Scotland (which is not the Royal Bank of Scotland) and the Clydesdale Bank. They too issue notes. Bank of Scotland notes have Sir Walter Scott, Flora Murray and some bridges (no, not the one over the Tay). Clydesdale notes have famous Scots (currently all men, earlier series had some women) and UNESCO world heritage sites.
The theme for the banknotes was chosen by the public and so will the individual wildlife for the notes. Farage is so full of anti democratic instincts that he fails on every level. I even have a new green MP due to the recent by election here in Manchester, where Reform came a poor second. Hopefully their bubble has burst.
Old Frogface is clearly angered hearing that the new banknote won’t feature an amphibian. Pretty much on par for the Reform UK drama queens. Perhaps he can console himself by flying back to Florida and spending another two days being ignored by his idol the Chump-in-Chief (I’m sure his backers will shell out another twelve grand for the bizjet so that this man of the people doesn’t have to dig into his own pockets for the jaunt).
I would favor putting skunks on high-currency notes, and including a “scratch and sniff” feature.
Wildlife … or royals? Why not both! Use a picture of Andrew cavorting.