Here, banks give little power to thier branch managers, and even less to mere tellers. If presented with foreign currency, these folks are NOT TRAINED or PREPARED to handle it. All the power to do these transactions is in the hands of the main branches in large cities. Most tellers have never seen a foreign banknote, and therefore, become confused at having any presented to them. The manager should have told you that the bank would gladly handle your transaction at the foreign currency desk (if there is one) at their main branch. If you live in a small town and are doing business with a local bank, then your chances of success are near zero, even if they have a “main branch downtown”. Your best bet would be to find a currency exchange place online (such as myFOREX.com) or go to the big city and do your exchange there at a big bank.

Never think that Betty the friendly teller knows anything about currency exchange.

Look at a pound note. On the Bank of England note it says ‘I promise to pay the bearer’. On the scottish notes it says something to the effect of ‘Take this to our headquarters in Edinburgh and we’ll exchange it into money’. The reason is fairly simple. Banknotes arent money. Coins are, notes arent.

Banknotes are merely a promise to pay, and it used to be (I don’t think it still is) that if you took a note to the Bank of Englad they’d give you the same amount back in money, i.e. gold, and scottish notes mean that if you take it back to RBS or BOS Headquarters they’ll exchange it for money.
Of course it doesnt happen like that nowadays, with terrorism and security concerns the government doesn’t want just anybody walking into the Bank of England, but you get the idea.

As a clarification of legal tender, it is really only for use as settlement of a debt. As such, in theory, you should only be able to use notes and coins to pay back a debt. This means that whilst you could use it in a restaurant (where you have already eaten the food and you owe them money for it) but not in a shop (where you haven’t actually used what you are going to buy yet.

Today [24/1/09] it was announced that Scottish member of the UK parliament David Mundell is to introduce a bill to compel English businesses to accept Scottish notes which at the moment they are not bound to.

Amusingly a rumour has been spread in Scotland to the effect that English banknotes are not legal tender here!

Thanks, Bill, Edinburgh, Scotland.

BOTH of those notes are British, the top one is ENGLISH, the bottom one is SCOTTISH. Scotland and England are two different countries, however along with Wales they form “Britain”… therefore any Pounds which come from those countries could be referred to as “British Pounds”… nothing more, nothing less… you don’t get Scottish pounds, english pounds and welsh pounds, it’s all the bloody same. They may have different stuff printed on them but that’s just in reflection of where they were printed and by which company.

And as a sidenote, they also use Pounds in Northern Ireland… as this is part of the UK. (Not britain though, that’s just the big main island.)

I’m not really an arsehole by the way, I just get really annoyed when people get that wrong, if I go over to Canada and call them all american they’re not gonna be very bloody happy… and vice versa.

You’ll get no argument from me about that obnoxious phrase, but I covered it earlier in a different rant.

Click here to read it.

In one episode, Battlestar Galactica moved beyond the addictive, nit-picky details like “who is the last Cylon?” and “how did Tigh get Six pregnant?” and reminded me of the big picture – our irrepressibly hopeful yet frustratingly misguided humanity.

Enter Doctor Zee – The Fifth Cylon

“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr

http://www.webomatica.com/wordpress/2008/06/14/battlestar-galactica-revelations/