Friday, January 25, 2002
Italy Daily reports from Naples:Angelo Pisano, a lawyer and the head of a consumer rights lobby, complained that “frequent handling of the copper-colored 1- and 2-cent coins turns them and human hands black.” He urged Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti to either pull the copper-colored coins out of circulation or replace them with new ones made of different metal. “I’m sure the government doesn’t want us to spend all our time shining up our money,” Mr. Pisano said.
More Thai coin updates: Thailand tells the EU to deal with the 2 euro/10 baht problem, since the Thai coin was created first.The Catalan daily El Periodico reported Thursday that the owner of a bar in northern Spain found five of the [Thai] coins recently when he emptied his automatic cigarette machine.
"How could the European Union have made such a mistake?" asked Alejandro Diaz, the manager of the bar in the community of Mollet. "This problem could have serious repercussions for millions of machines in operation in Europe."
Link via 2bangkok.com.
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Sorry for the missing updates from Germany but everything seems to work out fine.
The only concern is that prices will increase. And they did! At least in restaurants and cafes. Most of them didn't changed their menu for years. So the introduction of the euro was a elegant way for them to raise prices. They had to print new cards anyway.
Update on the 10 baht/2 euro coin similarities from the Singapore Straits Times.
Al in France, who clearly has a dirty mind, writes:Subject: Euro? It's rather a floppy money!!
Maybe many people already saw this but I just wanted to let you know that the minters maybe have a strange sense of representing the maps of finland and sweden or, a strange sense of humor!
Take a look at what finland + sweden look like on our coins! Not really vigorous!
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Two thirds of Europeans can't type the euro symbol (article in Spanish) on their keyboards. Logitech, a keyboard manufacturer, conducted a report in thirteen countries.69% of Spaniards can't get the euro symbol to display on their monitors. The Swedes have the least problems as 60% of users claim to know how to use the symbol. The Danish are the least prepared; 83% don't get the € symbol.
Depending on the user's operating system, the euro symbol can usually be obtained by keying the letter 'E' while having the 'Alt Gr' button depressed.
Monday, January 21, 2002
Euro inflation hits the Paris clubs: (in French)-Entrée du Folie's Pigalle: 20 euros (+30%)
-Vestiaire: 2 euros (+30%)
-Consos: 10 euros (là ils sont sympas c'est juste +10%)
-Charlie's Bar: 10 euros (+30%)Argggg...
nil so ill 15:52 GMT
The Royal Dutch Mint is offering a collection of BU sets of euro coins from all 12 euro countries for 169 euros.
Radio Netherlands reports that 3 billion dutch coins ( valued at more than 250 million euros) seem to have disappeared :...while many people may be keeping a set of Dutch coins as a souvenir, it appears millions of coins have vanished over the years, tucked away in old boxes or other forgotten places.
( link via prolific
Sunday, January 20, 2002
Just came back from a trip to China. I tried to change my yuans at the airport into euros, but only got one fifty-euro-bill and an arrangement of yuans. The people at the airport didn't have any smaller bills, so now I'm stuck with yuans worth for around 30 euros which I can neither use nor change conveniantly.