An old, fat fool starts a log. Hope no-one minds

Rick said:No pudding, peas, and gravy?

Rick said:
I bet it was over a fiver for fish and chips in Olympus years ago.

Fatpete said:I went to the local chippy earlier and purchased fish and chips, and while it has been threatening for a while today is the day that I bought fish and chips for the price of five English pounds. £3.40 for a fish and £1.60 for a portion chips

For reasons I do not know I remember when I was twelve, chips at the local chippy (I used to catch the bus back from my mates and the bus stop was outside the chippy) and a bag of chips was sixpence.

Please note that as this is fifty years ago it is pre decimalization and therefore 6d which was to later become 2.5p. Assuming that then as now fish was approximately double the price of chips that would put a fish at one shilling or 5p, possibly 5.5p. Therefore fish and chips back then would have been one shilling and sixpence or 7.5 or 8 pence.

Therefore the price of fish and chips has gone up about 65 fold. Those who claim to know about these things say that future performance is best based on past, so if we had to guess the price fifty years from now we are probably best to multiply by the same factor. So fifty years from now, fish and chips will be circa £325.

Now I begin to understand why in later life my father was always banging on about these thing.

Fatpete said:
It's strange what we remember and what we don't. Anyone who has a child, I always tell them to buy a book and on the day of its birth record the prices of routine stuff - fish and chips, pint of bitter, broadsheet newspaper, litre of diesel, pint of milk, twenty fags, loaf of bread etc. And every year update the prices, it would make interesting reading in later life, but as far as I know, no-one ever has.

aaron_lohan said:
I remember in 1996 that fish and chips in my local chippy came to $2.80 so it's nearly doubled in twenty odd years. I remember a pint could be bought for less than $1.50 in 1999 but it has doubled. Average salary hasn't though. If I have another child I will make note of all of these things.

ChrisMcCarthy said:
There are websites for these things...they even separate by area!

Billytheold said:There must be a reason?

Fatpete said:
I recall reading an article in the 150th anniversary edition of Punch magazine by a guy who wrote under the name of OofY Prosser (who was I believe a very rich person in the Bertie Wooster novels)
In it, it was revealed that the price of the magazine was 3d when it was first published in the 1840's, it rose to 6d but not until around 1916, so for seventy odd years there was no price increase as during those years those was no inflation.
Inflation was only invented around the time of the first world war and has been with us ever since.
I believe it all stems for the greed of bankers who print more money than they ought to. Every pound note issued used to have a pounds worth of something to back it up - hence the "I promise to pay the bearer" nonsense on the front of every note. Now it has nothing to back it, just words and empty promises. Doubtless it is far more complicated than that but that I believe to be the nub of it.

THIS ^^^^