‘Just use your card man, this is a p***take’.
I’m in McDonalds in the heart of London‘s bustling West End attempting to pay for a single hamburger in 2 pence coins. The cost is £1.19, which equates to 60 two pence coins with one pence change.
‘Hold on’, I stammer as my fat fingers thumb through the bag. The tension in the queue is extreme now and my fellow customers think I’m some beggar who can’t afford the food. More fool them, I have £40 in my pocket (in the form of 2000 coins) – I’m doing just fine.
At this point you’re probably wondering why I’m doing this.
Well, this week, the Treasury admitted it had no plans for more 1 and 2p coins to be minted in the coming years. This prompted howls of dismay from British shoppers and fetishists who enjoy making everyone else wait a little longer in the queue.
The Treasury’s decision follows a sad recent trend of businesses turning their back on shrapnel. These days, many coffee shops, pubs and shops proudly hang signs in their windows telling coin handlers they aren’t welcome.
How far can you get in Central London paying solely with two pence coins?
No new 1p and 2p coins are expected to be ordered in the coming years with proposals being worked on to be put to ministers over the future of the coinage
A paying customer waits patiently for his pint clutching his bag of coppers
The customer makes his way back to his friend clutching his pint like a World Cup trophy
But the death of the coin, as with VHS, is a seminal moment in the British national consciousness and another terrifying step along the road to a cashless, social credit type society.
Indeed, there are fears the cost of many basic items will now be rounded up to the higher full pound amount and hit vulnerable older people hardest.
You see, like a truffle pig or a fat person at a buffet, the greedy government doesn’t know when it’s full. Let them take our coins and they’ll soon want our fingerprints. Fast forward ten years and we’ll have to ask Keir Starmer to go to the toilet.
Is that really the world you want to live in? Going cap in hand to big tech for your morning Elf bar? Well I certainly don’t! And that, that is why I had no choice but to attempt to go on a night out in London using solely 2p coins.
My protest began in the High Street Kensington bank of Barclays where I made my withdrawal.
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With the advent of mobile banking, it’s exceedingly rare to actually speak to anyone in a bank these days, which may explain the cashiers frosty tone when I made my request.
‘Hello’, I began cheerfully, ‘I’d like to withdraw £50 please’
‘Certainly sir, can I just check your ca-‘
‘In two pence coins please.’
A silence descended over the counter. The cashier eyed me up, her eyes full of hate. Finally, and without breaking eye contact, she growled: ‘The most you can have is £40.’
Carrying 2000 coins is no easy task. In fact it was hellish as the combined weight of my sacks peaked at just over 14kg.
But like Jesus and his cross I persevered and dragged myself to Leicester Square to start my night.
My first stop was the Wetherspoons pub The Moon Under Water, a name the pub chain say is taken from the writings of George Orwell, which seemed apt for my protest.
Spoons has always been a friend to currency fondlers like myself and today was no different.
I ordered an ice cold Coors Light for £4.85 and slid over my bags. After looking me up and down for a minute, the barman said: ‘Is this the only thing you have?’
‘Yes’, I lied, and that was that. He took the coins without any further questions and my night had begun. See, is it that hard?
The good luck continued at nearby Fullers boozer The Lamb and Flag, a popular haunt of tourists and city boys.
The pub was heaving when I arrived so I was forced to get my elbows in to get to the bar, where, on command I regurgitated out my sacks.
I had ordered a frankly outrageous £7.50 pint which meant this was an eight bag job. After calling over his manager and pointing at me like I was an escaped inmate, the barman acquiesced and hoovered up my coins. Result.
An ordinary member of the public scrutinises his bill before carefully counting out his coins
An ordinary member of the public is informed his legal currency will not be accepted in the establishment
A central London punter is refused entry to a Black Cab on the grounds he is carrying shrapnel
But the good luck wasn’t to last. Our next stop was one of those Covent Garden outdoor bars that attract tourists and people from Essex to them like flies.
It had no atmosphere whatsoever and the menu was written in one of those threatening fonts that lets you know immediately that everything on it is overpriced.
I ordered a pint of terrible craft beer and arranged my coins suggestively on the table, eyeing up the waiter as I did so. He knew what was coming, but in this game of cat and mouse it’s all about who blinks first.
After watching him avoid us for ten minutes I broke and signaled that I would like to pay gesturing to my enormous pile of coppers. The waiter looked at me like I’d just punched his cat and began to scoop them into his paws.
I thought I was home and dry until a reedy man approached and began to chastise the server before gesturing at me to approach.
‘I cannot take these my friend’, he said in the manner of someone apologising without meaning it, ‘they do nothing for me.’
‘Nothing for you? They’re currency’, said I, ‘They could go in the till or you could take them to the bank?’
‘I’m sorry’, he said, though he clearly wasn’t. Whilst I was digging about in my wallet for my hated debit card a homeless man in distress came charging up the street asking for money for a hostel.
Seeing the pile of bags on the table, he approached us and asked for some change.
I gladly accepted and moved to give him two bags when he paused and stared at me.
‘Are they two pence coins?’
‘Yes, but they’re organised into bags, one bag equals one pound’, I said excitedly.
‘Nah, you’re alright mate’, he said.
After the pain of this double affront to British currency I decided to try my luck with that most noble of London traditions: the Black Cab.
I approached an idling car and politely asked if he could take me to Leicester Square.
He was more than happy to but seized up when I asked him if he would take two pence coins.
‘What? No, pay with something else.’
‘Why? They’re in bags’, I argued.
‘I don’t care I don’t have time to count coins, take them to the bank.’
‘But, I got them from the bank?’
A nicotine lover exchanges ten bags of two pence coins for a cool hit on a mango Elf bar
A foodie watches as his coins are counted by an employee of the Ronald McDonald corporation
Our last stop was an arcade, surely they’d take my hard earned coins?
An irate gamer fumes after learning that not a single machine in the arcade accepts 2p coins
No dice. And sadly it was the same story at the next pub where the barman seemed to take a perverse pleasure in refusing me after I had carefully arranged my pile along the counter.
I had more luck in a nearby vape store with the proprietor even asking for more bags after I had counted out the frankly unreasonable ten he was demanding for his Elf bar (RRP £5.99).
Throughout the night the only place that actually counted out my coins and provided me with change was McDonalds which says a lot about the penny pinchers in Ronald McDonald’s corporation.
They also thanked me for the coppers as it was ‘just what they needed’ however their compliment fell on death ears as quite a queue had now built up behind me and I was frightened for my life.
Amazingly by the end of the night I had managed to spend a good portion of my coins despite noticeable refusals including an arcade (this country!) and a massage parlor.
So, what have we all learned from this experiment? While anyone attempting to pay for services in just 2p coins like I did is undoubtedly an attention seeking psychopath, the majority of businesses were more than happy to accept the currency.
And that’s a good thing. Your average two pence coin has lived a live that most of us can’t even imagine.
Being passed from hand to hand, resting in the pockets of Royals, drug dealers, celebrities and politicians alike before finally arriving at the MailOnline’s experiment.
The Times They Are A’ Changing – but let’s not forget our past.
