Shrapnel

I am aware the Euro is hated with a lust by some of my fellow citizens. But standing in a queue awaiting to buy the local-as-in-foreign equivalent of a Mars Bar and wondering what is the price in Liramarkpesos not easy to convert to sterling pounds and pence. Finally forced to stand before a lady demanding money with grimaces. Finally standing in front of a sudden queue of locals wanting nothing more than to reach the grimacing lady. Mental arithmetic sums are done, tried to be done, to convert a Mars Bar into sterling ..into Liramarkpeso equivalent that included dividing by 10,000, rounding to second decimal places, multplying by 3.5, or was it 3.7 and adding the first number I thought of. Eventually one parts with the largest note as signified by the number of '000's and the note is handed over with trepidation. Does humilation await.

Grimace turns to despair, words are spoken in tongues, is this an Evangelical Church and a note is waved, the Guidebook has told you to say 'I no speak', she hands over a ridiculous amount of notes and metal as a waiting queue bays for your blood, and still she calls for a treasury transfer with sovereign guaranteefor the cash to fund for my confectionary purpose.

And next day this is repeated as shrapnel is accumulated.

And to add injury to insult, the Mars bar doesn't quite taste like the Blighty Mars Bar.