Down Vaughn Rd to St Claire West ,then to Bathhurst down the hill and left on Davenport to Bedford St and if you look South on Bedford you get a perfect view of the C.N. Tower . From there I ended up on Bloor St and once past the science museum the high end retailers are on both sides of the Street . I cup my hands around my eyes  and press against the glass at Prada and see hand bags back lit in glass shelved cubby holes. I imagine the fashonistas entering to worship at the hand bag alter or even a modern day Wordsworth composing an ode to a bag .As I leave I notice I have slobbered on the glass and a touch of spit dribbles down from the Prada sign on the door .

Charles Phillips and his blog ?spell check???       Nancy. hi are you confused  ?, well chaos reigns , ha ha. This is where you should click on the link to find out more and then sign up as a follower  . perhaps when you are ............

John Buchan pounds shillings and pence

Whilst walking along Vaughn Road in Toronto I came upon several boxes of books on the sidewalk and obviously free for the taking . I sorted through them and picked several that interested me .There was an old Penguin book by John Buchan titled "The Island of Sheep" in perfect condition . It had been reprinted in 1960 and first published in 1936 but what caught my eye was was the price on the cover 2/6 .Only those who had grown up in England at that time would understand that 2/6 meant two shillings and six pence or 30 English pennies , 1/8th of a pound ,and also known as half a crown , a crown being 5 shillings or more commonly known as five  bob (a shilling in slang is a bob and Bob times 20 is a qwid which properly named is a pound.you would think that would be all we need to know about British currency but there is more.A penny is 1/12th of a shilling  plus  a halfpenny coin is 1/2 a penny and a farthing is 1/4 of a penny which gives enough information to calculate 240 pennies in a pound .One more thing there is also the guinea which is 21 shillings but not common in my time .

John Buchan  was among many other things famous as a novelist    his best known work being "The 39 steps" which was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock .He was also Governor General of Canada from 1936 to 1940 .Check him out on Wikipedia a serious over achiever . He was a contemporary of Norman Rockwell though they never crossed paths but another serious over achiever thanks to my help in another life .