[[COPY ENDS: What price progress, eh?]]
************
THERE'S a model pillar box that sits on a shelf of the tall, thin bookcase in the hall that principally displays my Asterix and Rupert the Bear collections.
You are busy people, and I have not gathered you here today to talk about Asterix, nor yet Rupert the Bear. No, it is the little red pillar box that will lead us to our theme.
You are gripped by the mystery. You sit on the edge of your seat. Let me shove you firmly back in it then to announce that my topic today is money. Yes, money, root of all evil, currency of all concern.
What has cash to do with little red pillar boxes? Well, the little red pillar box does not collect little red letters. It collects money. Bronze coins of small denomination, to be precise, which I never use in commerce now and which, periodically, I collect from the little red pillar box and take to a sifting machine that converts them into proper cash for good causes.
The problem? The little red pillar box hardly gets any donations from one week to another now, and it must be well over a year since I last trundled forth with a wee bag of bronze loot.
We're moving towards the cashless society, brothers and sisters. The only reason I put a paltry amount of coins in my pockets nowadays is to feed charity collection buckets in the mall.
Unfortunately, I still have trouble trying to ensure I pluck a 10p rather than a pound coin from my pocket. I jest. I don't actually give anything. Joke. God, I hate confessional journalism.
We all must confess that, as usual, the Scandinavians are ahead of us on this cashless malarkey. The Denmarkians, as I once heard someone seriously call the Danes, are even considering allowing retailers to ban cash altogether.
They believe cash costs money, in the sense that it takes time for salaried assistants to fiddle about with it. All well and good. But I must say I'm a bit nervous about this, particularly using smartphones to pay, even if I recognise it's the future.
I can swipe my debit card, for example, but still laboriously type in the pin number, as I'm too frightened to try the new method. Automated doo-dahs don't do it for me. For the same reason, I don't use supermarket self-service tills at supermarkets, even when staff drag me towards them.
But, yup, I accept that money is on the way out. It's a bit grubby anyway. And it can make your trousers sag. But it can also make little red pillar boxes happy. What price progress, eh?
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article