And another thing…

I have exactly the same problem with Northern Irish notes when travelling in England. When I try to use them in Scotland, however, they don’t bat an eyelid.

it’s not legal tender, you know. Not even sure it’s legal tender in Scotland.

I hope she forced it down his neck!

Bloody sassenachs! Didn’t she try the “Do you know my husbands an MP” in an indignant voice.

Actually, probably best not to try that one in the current climate of public anger against MP’s expenses.

Mind you – have you tried their MacHaggisburger & Tatties?
Oh to die for!

Almost literally.

Of course, McDonald’s has been forced to give its young recruits basic education in reading and sums due to New Labour’s ‘education’, so I hope your missus directed some of her ire at you and your comrades.

It’s not the lad’s fault (although he obviously lacks basic social skills); in all the cash handling jobs I’ve had, some for large chains, I’ve never had any training on Scottish notes e.g. what they look like, how to spot fakes etc. If you want to blame anyone, blame MuckyD’s.

another union dividend eh Tom?

so equal, so mutually respectful, so… english.

I’m opting out when I next get the chance

err, been going on for years. Why do you think everyone pays for as much as possible on credit card ?

Tip – use WH Smiths. Buy a newspaper and they take Scottish stuff. And Euros for that matter.

Is not knowing about Scottish notes stupidity or lack of education? If you’ve never been told about them, you simply won’t know.

No excuse for the bad manners, though.

Small point of order Tom. It is an offence to reproduce a ten pound note like that (or any other). This applies whether on paper or on a website, without stamping something across it, like “specimen”, lest someone be misled into believing it’s the real thing. It think you also have to blur out the serial number.

When the ‘new’ twenty pound note came out I was up in Scotland visiting friends and stopped by a newsagents which refused to accept it because they didn’t recognise it.
Its not a one way street, more an issue with people being educated on whats legal tender.
Then again if that happened I probably wouldn’t have Glaswegian friends that still go on about how the ’stupid english’ bars would use to mistake a £1 scottish note for a £5 english one…

Sorry Tom this is not a 70s thing it happens all the time and frankly gets my back up every time it happens.

Your wife can consider herself lucky I know a girl who had the police called for trying to buy goods with a Scottish £20.

My Wife just flew out of Heathrow to visit her sister I had to make sure that she took enough English Money from the only hole in the wall in the area that dispences it. People have been stopped from using the shuttle buses at Heathrow by trying to pay using Scottish notes.

In a recent trip to Paris I changed some pounds sterling into Euros using Scottish notes. I did it at a legimate exchange thingy in one of the major train stations.

Before changing the money the guy told me that I would not get as much Euros for Scottish notes as I would for English notes.

I was in a fair hurry to catch a train so had no choice but to resist saying “You fucking what!?” and had to say “Jesus. Give me the dosh, then”.

What the hell was all that about?

I think I was the victim of a misunderstanding, rather than a rip off, or was there some legit reason for it?

Bizarre.

And in a paper shop in London, I once asked for a stamp to send a postcard to Scotland.

“A stamp for where?” asked the shop keeper, not really catching where I’d asked for.

“Scotland” I said.

“Is that in the EU?” he asked.

Sometimes being from Scotland is like being from the Land That Time Forgot.

And, naturally, we still have dinosaurs here (no, not Labour politicians – the Loch Ness Monster!)

On a more positive note, I have (on a rare occasion and in the more dark and dingy English establishments) been able to pass off a Scottish one pound note as an English fiver…

I hate to be pedantic Tom, but he’s not under any legal obligation to take your money.

Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes, from private retail banks rather than a central bank, are not “legal tender” in the strictest sense (a form of payment that cannot be refused) but “promissary notes” (a contract to pay, like a cheque).

They are legal and they are valid, but the difference is that a merchant may refuse promissary notes (whereas he could not refuse legal tender) because of a perceived associated risk of not being able to convert the promissary note. That seemed absurd before Scottish financial institutions started looking shaky last year, and again now, but there was a while I wondered what would happen to millions of pounds of currency if RBS (upon whom the promissary notes are often drawn) was allowed to go bust.

That doesn’t mean that McDonald’s aren’t being a bit silly and more than a little bit offensive (though a company I worked for had a policy of not accepting Scottish £50 and £100 – they were compelled to take English £50, but didn’t like it) but technically Scottish pounds are not legal tender.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/faqs.htm#16

Are Scottish & Northern Irish notes legal tender?
In short ‘No’ these notes are not legal tender; only Bank of England notes are legal tender but only in England and Wales.
The term legal tender does not in itself govern the acceptability of banknotes in transactions. Whether or not notes have legal tender status, their acceptability as a means of payment is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved.

Glad I checked

According to this site (see below) lots of notes aren’t actually legal tender including some of the BoE ones.

http://www.siliconglen.com/Scotland/1_7.html

Scottish bank notes are not legal tender in Scotland. English bank notes of denomination less than 5UKP were legal tender in Scotland under Currency and Bank Notes Act 1954. Now, with the removal of BoE 1UKP notes, only coins constitute legal tender in Scotland

Makes for a more interesting country.

On a related issue, in the Irish Bar at Dubai airport they will accept Scottish notes but give a poorer exchange rate.

I found that living in Newcastle, shopkeepers were more likely to accept Scottish notes, whereas when I used them in London, you’d have people behind the counter screaming “BURN THE WITCH!”. Lack of familiarity, methinks.

It’s certainly nothing new.

Never mind all this dreck. The truly important thing is that your blog now has insuperable competition.

“And another thing” is the latest sequel to the HHGTTG and is on R4 later. It even has 3 full stops after it, just like your blog.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7619000/7619708.stm

Trump THAT one Mr Harris.

David Petrie – behaviour of this sort shames Scotland. I hope the barman realised later on that you cheated him and p*ssed in your next drink.

Remember: he who laughs last, laughs longest.

You would think that a store named McDonalds would know better.

PS. Tom your twitter link to this thread is now pointing to a Japanese porn site. http://tiny.cc/Fiyqx

Personally,I get a perverse joy from arguing them into submission.

Incidentally, you might’ve found it easier if your Government had gone to the trouble of making Scottish notes legal tender in one of the past twelve years.

I got the Japanese porn site as well. Couldn’t understand a word, although the pictures were pretty clear. Hope I haven’t registered!

It is very iritating Tom like some of the replies you have had. My staff were trained in all British notes and we had examples in the cash desks if they were not sure. I used to tell just take them I never had a problem. I used to take any money and gave a good rate of exchange, but we had proper shops and staff then.

http://www.siliconglen.com/Scotland/1_7.html tels me, amongst all sorts of other interesting stuff about “legal tender” (apparently there’s not much of it about) that “The following discussion with the Secretary of State for Scotland occurred on 23rd Jan 2008 re Scottish Banknotes and should be available via Hansard.”

“Des Browne: I welcome the opportunity to repeat what I have already said. Scottish banknotes are legal, and enjoy exactly the same status as any other method of payment. The fundamental problem is that the law of contract throughout the United Kingdom allows people not to engage in a transaction at the point of payment if they do not wish to do so.”

Perhaps the poor lad just “didn’t wish to”…

Jack@ 3:57pm “I have exactly the same problem with Northern Irish notes when travelling in England.”

I see so few NI notes that I couldn’t tell you if one was real or not. Scottish notes are easy to verify if you have a UV light.

Bit of a can of worms that you’ve opened here Tom…

It’s things like this that leave people rightly questioning what the supposed benefit of this one-sided colonial-style “union” with England is…..

Still, in a few years they’ll quite rightly refuse to take the note since Scotland will be a sovereign nation of her own.

@ Tom

I’m pretty sure that Scottish notes aren’t legal tender, nor is MacDonalds under any obligation to take them, or under any obligation to serve you if you act in an objectionable way.

Sorry.

This is the reason I always say “No, give me a proper one” when a shop tried to give me change with Scottish money in it…. I realllly can’t be arsed for the hassle when I’m in a rush.

For the absence of doubt, I’d like to point out that I never claimed that scottish bank notes are legal tender. i would have been very surprised if they turned out to be. I was simply making a point that Scotland is not a “foreign” country and that staff at McD’s or anywhere else should be a bit more courteous when they’re dealing with members of the public.

“Scotland is not a “foreign” country”

Well that all depends on where one is currently standing.

Anyway Tom, I thought you’d have known by now that rude, ignorant arrogance is the typical London greeting offered to anyone from outside the M25.

When I was young I used to get 15p luncheon vouchers every day. They were NIC free or something. Anyway you could spend them in McDonalds and that branch was nearest. So once a month I would get to the front of the queue at lunchtime and then pay in 15p vouchers.

Take it from me the 15 times table is clearly not in the national curriculum.

In later life a client once had a call from their US parent’s treasury team. “How do you hedge your foreign exchange exposure to Scottish pounds”.

Will the Fees office allow Gordon to repay his expenses with Scottish notes?

@Math Campbell
It’s things like this that leave people rightly questioning what the supposed benefit of this one-sided colonial-style “union” with England is

You did notice that BoE notes aren’t legal tender in Scotland.

You’re right it is one sided.
Scottish MPs get to enact purely English legislation.
The PM is from Scotland
The BoE was founded by Scots.

As far as I can see the Scots do fairly well out of the Union and have done for a long time.

There are lots of London Roads in Scotland, haven’t found a Glasgow or Edinburgh road near London (there is an Edinburgh road in Norfolk, doesn’t seem to go towards Edinburgh though).

Haha! This reminds me of when I bought a coffee in Starbucks in Birmingham with two RBS £1 notes. The look I got was priceless.

I am surprised you let your wife have ten pound note a whole one at that….
mind we only have your word for it

Scoland is not England and is filled with people who speak funny, have weird traditions and eat odd food.

Sounds foreign to me…

This sounds quite normal, to be honest. I work on a holiday park, so we’re quite used to handling Scottish and Irish banknotes. I’ve lost count of the number of times customers from these areas have told me they have trouble getting shops to take their money. It all says pounds sterling on it and it’s all perfectly legal, so I don’t understand why this keeps happening.

Although perversely, it doesn’t seem to work the other way round. Recently, I was spending two weeks with my girlfriend over in Northern Ireland. When I attempted to pay for some shopping with Bank of England notes, there wasn’t a peep. The shop assistant told me that nobody considered it unusual to have a B of E note over there.

I assume this is down to English people’s sense of superiority and smugness.

I thought it was all our money anyway

@ Sergeant Plodder

It’ll be monopoly money if Gordon prints any more.

It is sad, and not at all new of course.

The popular culture worsened with Murdoch, coarsened with the pervasion of his sheer nastiness.

There is a way forward, but it will be expensive, and involve doubling the numbers and quality of teachers.

UK media must be in the control of British residents which would be a good start.

Like others, I had heard that Scottish notes are not technically legal tender. Can anybody have get an answer to this?

Of course, this sort of story always makes me feel militant about my adopted country. My story on this is when I was in Cardiff and presented a Scottish Tenner to a waitress. She gave me the kind of look that you would get if you had w”"ked in her hand.

Stephen O’Donnell
Small point of order Tom. It is an offence to reproduce a ten pound note like that **************************************

That’s right, spoil it for everyone.

I’ve already hit print page a 100 times.

Any chance, Tosh, you could put up the other side?

Last time I got back from Scotland – Carphone Warehouse would not take my Scottish notes. They called the Assistant Manager out and he said he did believe me that they were legal tender, but it was more than his jobs worth to take the risk. Even the bank next door seemed to think it was quite understandable that people “wouldn’t realise”.

Tom

I think the clue’s in the word STERLING. Not much education required there then.

I always try to exchange my Scottish banknotes for English ones before I travel to London. London, England is after all, the centre of the universe.

But there’s no excuse for crap service. However, it doesn’t really matter where you are; a bit like Russian Roulette. It can get you at any time. Even in Scotland.

[...] Tom Harris is upset that McDonalds don’t take Scottish money [...]

Scotland a foreign country? Having liveed here for six years, I have to say it is.

Scotland is not oop North with quaint accents and haggis.

Scotland has vastly different values and social mores. Scotland has different laws, certainly the use of “breach of the peace” is quite unique, and covers everything from saying “f*ck” to somebody, attacking your partner with your bottom and just being in the way.

You cannot leave a shop without the assistant saying, “Don’t buy this one, it’s crap, buy this one it’s better and cheaper” They will run out of the supermarket, chasing you because you forgot your bogof.

It rains all the time. It has rained for about three years now, non-stop.

There are lots of other things. But Scotland is certainly a foreign country. But a good one. As soon as they introduce border controls, I shall apply for citizenship.

Be fair to us English, I’ve seen a Scottish bank note exactly twice in my life. Given their *extreme* scarcity down here you can probably forgive us for not being familiar with them.

The second time I was working behind a bar. In all honestly took it because I didn’t want to look like an ignorant southern twat, because it could have been the most unrealistic of forgeries (basically, as long as it looked vaguely note like and had RBS on) and I would never have known.

wrinkled weasel

Thats Bullsh#t it doesn’t rain on rainy days(much)

you and your london ways

Sorry wrinkled, we’re not planning on strict border controls, although if the newly elected Prime Minister Salmond in 2015 ratifies the Schengen Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty, we may be forced to put up border controls for the English, although anyone from most of mainland Europe wouldn’t need a passport to gain entry. I doubt that would happen though, simply because the bureaucracy would be pretty expensive….

Yup, this bizarre English fetish for refusing money (why are they in business if not to take it?) is something i regularly encountered while a student in London any time i’d return having spent any time at home in Scotland.

The worst example i ever suffered of this was a few months ago where a Big Issue seller harangued me on train for giving him a Scottish £5. I hadn’t any coins to pay him, so handed it over and didn’t ask for change. Rather than being grateful the cheeky git kept going on at me despite my assurances that he could indeed use it. He then went on to ask the other passengers around me if the money was genuine. Looking back i should have handed him back the Big Issue and taken my money back but at the time i simply sat there stunned at how incredibly obnoxious the whole thing was.

You’ve no idea how arrogant you sound.

Dr Johnson put it best. ‘Seeing Scotland is only seeing a worse England’.

Tee-hee…

[...] real or not. Scottish notes are easy to verify if you have a UV light. … Read more here: McStupid | And another thing… Share [...]

In the crappy little job I had when doing my A’levels, I never had any training in Scottish money either. I don’t think you can blame the poor lad. Especially with a nasty headline like “McStupid”.

Apparently the atmosphere at the PLP meeting last night was ‘the most venomous in its history’.

It wasn’t because you were still upset over the Scottish ten pound note saga was it?

You would think English people would have more knowledge of the banknotes printed by the banks that bankrupted Britain.

And Gordon Brown’s solution? – Sell off the assets of English local authorities, the English student loans book and the English Dartford Crossing.

You’ve got a nerve Tom.

Spot on English Conservatives!

I might take a Scottish note, but never one from BoS or RBoS… they’re useless when it comes to banking. McBrown has just had to sell the English family silver to help with the bail out.

BTW good to see the Conservatives have finally started a English Conservatives web site to balance with the Scottish Conservatives one. I have been waiting to see that one appear!

Do you think Labour will start an English Labour website? Seems fair, they already have a Scottish Labour one!

Oh, been there! Had an identical experience at Burger King in Paddington. Got the manager, completed the transaction – and they gave me a Scottish fiver in change. They didn’t see the irony.

The last time I went to London I caught the train from Carlisle.

I had to get some cash out so went to the cashpoint at the station. One of the notes was a Scottish £10.

Being concerned they wouldn’t accept this note in London I then bought a coffee at the Coffee Shop on the platform in the hope of getting an English £5 as part of the change.

The £5 note I received was a Scottish £5 note.

So it seems that Scottish currency is legal tender in Carlisle even if it isn’t in London.

Know any friendly Cumbrian MP’s you could swap your currency with?

@ TH43

It’d probably be called, “Labour-regions”.

Anyway, since when have the South-Brit Tories recognised England? I’m a bit sceptical to say the least.

When I worked at a supermarket I gave a lady a Scottish tenner as change and she shot me a nasty look and made me change it for an English one. I’m sure many people here aren’t even aware Scotland has its own money.

Tom Harris: The basic fact it that MacDonalds and other retailers are not obliged to take Scottish notes. As they are not familiar with them there is more possibility of being passed fakes, so they have reason to treat them with caution. If you insist on being different (and boy do you insist on being different) you really shouldn’t complain when you have to deal with the inconvenience of difference.

Math Cambell: You may not introduce border controls, but that doaen’t mean that we won’t. It is not just Scotland’s choice, much as you all seem to think you can dictate the terms of an independent Scotland’s relationship with England.

Isn’t it time the Royal Bank of Scotland was renamed to something that more accurately reflects it’s ownership?

Such as “the mainly English taxpayer’s bank”?

Bloody sassanachs, dose the scotcher whom started his comment like this not realise the person whom refused the money was probably not Englisc themselves. Personally I refuse scotch notes in change because we have our own notes in England with scotchers on them, why do we need theirs?

Indeed not James; I wouldn’t have a massive problem with the English putting up border controls, if they so wished, merely that we probably wouldn’t on account of the cost/benefit ratio being somewhat lower than naff all…

I am troubled by the whole EU things; free trade is great, and I am generally inline with the idea of the Euro. But some of the other EU policies are not things I’m greatly impressed by..

Things like the CFP…all that does right now is allow overfishing of Scottish waters by boats landing elsewhere. I’d rather restrict Scottish waters to Scotland’s fleet and control quotas so as to guarantee not only the survival of our fleet but also fish stocks. I’d also like to restrict free movement of EU nationals a bit, like bring in a visa system whereby you can only work here with permission and you cannot claim any form of benefit etc.

“I thought this kind of stupidity had disappeared in the seventies – depressing to see it rear its arrogant, ignorant head again in the 21st century.”

Why in the seventies? The seventies were a dreadful time! You live in a fantasy, don’t you? Like so many – the ’70s are the new ’60s.

Waste of time. Study the newspapers and other media of the ’70s and discover the truth.

And stop boring us with propaganda.

If a Scottish note has the word ‘Sterling’ incorporated in the wording on the front IT IS Legal tender, Morrisons accept them without question.

I got stopped from getting on a bus in England, because the bus driver wouldn’t take my Scots note, and I didn’t have any other change!

They are not obliged to take them. I thought that they were, but if they have a policy that they are worried about fakes, they can decline to take them, as with £50 notes. It is their loss, agreed, but they are only ‘legal tender’ as far as banks are concerned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kO9ZNQRm-s 1:07 Michael McIntyre on Scottish money

I wish you would show the same pride when it comes to accepting the £25 billion English pounds.

Tom

You’ve opened up a real xenophobic can of worms here. I thought I was on a Telegraph blog for a moment.

Anyway, good smokescreen for MP’s expenses. Will you be declaring the contents of your letter?

I take it you don’t follow me on Twitter, Andrew?

I’m late to this post, but I know of a chap who was once forced by London Underground to change a Northern Irish issued sterling note at a bureau de change at Victoria before they would allow him to buy a ticket! The most annoying and surprising thing about this, is the B de C did accept a NI sterling note as Irish (they use the Euro) and changed to it to “English Money”! Beggars belief!

Oh, I forgot the funniest of all the NI sterling note stories – our former Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, once told an audience of his weekend shopping trips when he travelled home to Hampshire (i think). He used to store up all the NI issued notes he could and took them to the checkout and handed them to the unsuspecting Asda assistant. When informed that they could not be accepted he simply stood his ground and refused to move, informing them that he given them legal tender and had no other means to pay. They always relented!

@ Loki

So your story is essentially about a petty idiot who delighted in causing disruption in shops and deliberately slowing the queue of traffic.

I hope the woman buying calpol for her sick child or working man who had to lose five minutes of his evening just so Hugh could get his jollies found it as funny at the time.

Prime case for a ASBO surely?

The answer is simple. Keep out of England.
Spend your money in your own country.

I shouldn’t worry too much Tom. Once Scotland is independent and MP’s who represent Scottish constituencies no longer need to travel to Westminster, you won’t have this problem.
In any case an independent Scotland will probably be in the Euro so you’d need to change your money in English pounds on a visit to England, perhaps for a holiday.
We English would be very pleased to see. Happy of course that Scottish constituency MPs can no longer interfere in English affairs.

LOKI. When Scotland declares independence I hope that England does the same. Independence from N.Ireland that is. Wales might take a bit more unraveling but hopefully England can also sever ties there.
You won’t have a case for complaint then because N.Ireland will be a foreign country just as S.Ireland is. Perhaps you will join the Euro? Many places in England will accept them I believe, or you can change them into English pounds quite easily.

Math Campbell: There is much that we agree on then. You see no advantage to an independent Scotland in border controls and I am sure you are right. I, on the other hand, see them as not merely advantageous but essential to an independent England, so I am glad you will have no problem with them.

I can’t share yout sanguine view of the EU and the Euro, but an independent Scotland’s stance of these will, of course, a matter for the Scots.

I genuinely wish you well with your aspiration for an independent Scotland, within the EU, to regain control of Scottish fisheries and impose control on EU immigration. In particular, Ted Heath’s sell out of the interests of all UK fisherman was truly disgraceful. No doubt an independent Scotland, with about 1% of the EU population and GDP, will be really well placed to do this. Brussels so often gives way to the views of small countries, just look at the way the initial results of Irish referenda are always gracefully accepted.

Have been happy to accept and use Scottish notes on my rare forays up there, but as a Londoner, I hardly ever come across them, don’t know what they look like and certainly wouldn’t be able to tell a fake. If I was a checkout operator, with my ass on the line, I suspect I’d be reluctant to take the “risk” too – purely through lack of familiarity (and education).

Isn’t the solution to end this anachronism of a small minority of private sector banks being allowed to print their own notes? It’s unfair free advertising for them. It introduces unnecessary confusion through multiple notes. Sure the Scots and Northern Irish shouldn’t have “English” money thrust upon them, but it’s only fair to rename the Bank of England as the UK Central Bank (or similar), since that’s what it is.

Advocates for Scottish Independence apparently want to join the Eurozone – and the ECB has made clear there is to be national, let alone private sector bank, variation on Euro notes. So they might as well get used to the loss of “Scottish” notes.

I would like to propose a vote on English independence from Scotland.

We could get a vote on coming out of the EU on the same ballot to save paper.

Probably a good job it wasn’t a Clydesdale banknote. Actually never had a problem using a Scottish note here, though a bus driver did once return a Gibraltarian pound coin to Me on the grounds that He “didn’t go there much.” True.