What do you do with a tuppence?

...Is that even grammatically correct?

Ought I say, what do you do with a two-penny-piece? Hmm. Well, how ever one refers to them, I am a bit at a loss as to their usefulness. The existence of a tuppence would make sense, I suppose, if the cost of things was in even, rather than odd, percentages of a pound: 1.04, for example, or 6.12. I would happily pay .02 for something! But alas, this tends not to be the case. There is no tax on food here as there is in the states, so no awkward tabs with random cents/pence tacked onto the end. The cornish meat pies from the pie shop around the corner (with which I have fallen suddenly and madly in love) are 1.55 (waaay too reasonable; it is SO hard to argue myself out of getting one...); a chai tea "steamer" (aka, caffeinated delisciousness in a cup) from my favorite coffee shop is 1.20; a package of mushrooms, which I have been virtually living on in proper hobbit fashion, costs 80p, and a jar of the curry sauce I have been frequently dumping on said mushrooms is 75p. For none of these would I use a tuppence. Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer, which, as previously mentioned, is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING,  costs far too much in bars and clubs, but from the local grocery store it is 1.49... perhaps I could use some of my two-penny-pieces there? Kronenberg beer, another favorite of mine, costs about 2.80 at most bars; again not a number requiring me to whip out my handy little tuppence.

Kronenberg has become my drink of choice when I am not in the mood for something sweet, and I have begun to order one once a week at Frankenstein's Bar, half a block from campus. With the acquisition of a student card, one becomes eligible for their weekly student deals: a free meal with the purchase of a (discounted) drink. This means that a decent-sized goatcheese and onion salad and a (rather large and very tasty) pint ends up costing less than just the pint would elsewhere. Of course, it's really a good deal for the bar, because once there, it is tempting to sit, and order another drink or perhaps a side, while laughing at the decor (mad-scientist style electric lights and suspicious looking pipes and wheels that call to mind images of Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman cackling and conjuring over test tubes and cauldrons) and half-heartedly watching whatever bad monster movie they are playing on the tv (Helsing, last week). They really play up the cheesy theme, with long, angsty quotes from Frankenstein on the stairwell walls, and monster noises echoing through the bathrooms (extremely disconcerting if you don't know what you are hearing), strange-colored shots served in test tubes, and a larger-than-life-sized doll of the Creature which is lowered down upon its slab as it sits up jerkily to a creepy soundtrack. But because their drinks, their service and their food all are good, the kitschiness is cute and funny rather than annoying. Also, the fact that the building used to be a church, complete with stained glass windows and a pulpit, makes the gothic theme even more appropriate and amusing.

And yet... not even at Frankenstein's have I yet spent a tuppence. I have been given plenty of them as change (I have a small pile growing on my shelf, after it overflowed my wallet's coin pouch) but haven't had the determination to find a way of spending one. I felt silly removing them from my "purse" (I have been told that only men carry wallets; women use purses) but because change is actually something that one uses here, unlike at home, I could not let them get in the way of my pound, two-pound, and fifty pence coins, all of which I use with extraordinary frequency. It makes me hope that the dollar coin catches on in the states - I LOVE the pound coins! And the two-pound ones are absolutely gorgeous. Of course, it might in part be because I am biased, and think that "Queen Lizzie" as I heard her affectionately called, is far prettier than ol' Abraham, and the fact that instead of rather boring monuments on the back there are LIONS

and CELTIC KNOTS

 and SHIELDS (with UNICORNS)

 and DRAGONS!!!

and... and... well, and leeks, but I am more amused and less excited about those. Leeks are the national plant of Wales, I think, which explains it but does not make it any less silly.

Of course, single pennies are relatively useless too, as a general rule, on both sides of the pond. I definitely have to go out of my way to actually make use of the little copper coins clogging up my coin purse. My flat mates recently introduced me to a new use for them, however. Drinking games are not as common here as they are in college parties in the US, it seems ~ people are much more likely to sit and chat while pre-gaming than they are to whip out the notorious red cups and start throwing ping-pong balls around, and not being a fan of beer pong, I approve of this (apparently the last group of American exchange students to live in our flat threw wild parties with obnoxious, loud music, crazy games of flip cup and discarded cans everywhere. We are trying to prove to our British flat mates that not ALL Americans are like that...). However, one of the common ploys used to get one's mates to drink more/faster in this bit of the world, is apparently to "penny" them: if someone has their hand on their glass, you can drop a (hopefully rather clean) penny into their drink, and they must down it. "SAVE THE QUEEN! SAVE THE QUEEN!!!" Everyone started yelling when my flat mate Grace slipped a penny into her friend's glass. Throwing an exasperated look at Grace, the poor girl dutifully began to chug her drink, as Grace explained the premise to me: you could not, of course, let the Queen drown, and therefore had to drink quite, quite quickly, trying to empty your glass before the penny reached the bottom. I was very amused, but made sure not to let my fingers linger on my glass any longer than necessary after that.

I wonder what would happen if you dropped a tuppence in someone's glass...