back to article BOFH: Memory short circuit

There must be something in the water. I've got a shocking case of nominal amnesia which I can't shake and the PFY just isn't helping. True, being locked in a lift for several hours (until I'd fed sufficient pound notes through the doors to the PFY) just prior to the holidays didn't help, but I'm never really any good at …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Pound notes

    "(until I'd fed sufficient pound notes through the doors to the PFY)"

    Pound notes?

    I didn't realise this was set in the 70s.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    I wish

    I was allowed a cattleprod at work. Would certainly liven Friday afternoons up. I'm thinking standing in the stairwell at basement level shocking the handrail which continuous metal all the way to the 8th floor at odd intervals would be fun.

  3. Michael McLean
    Thumb Up

    Class!!

    really enjoyed this one lol, reminds me of an incident at work lol

  4. Mark Warman

    Pound Notes?

    ?????

    Don't remember those, I'm sure *whistles innocently*

  5. The March Hare
    Thumb Up

    @Pound Notes

    Try Scotland - we still use them here.....

    I have to confess to changing passwords at the end of the year & having a moment of (mild) panic when I came back from holiday.. but then remembered the name of the git in personnel that installed 180solutions toolbar on his pc & it all came flooding back!

    Thumbs up, cos it's all working (at the moment, anyway!)

  6. Steve Evans
    Coat

    @AC

    Actually pound notes were withdrawn in 1984.

    However they still remain in the Channel Islands and Scotland.

    I'll resist comments about being unable to pry them from the grip of a Scotsman.

    Ooops.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @Pound notes

    The Royal Bank of Scotland still issues pound notes, though only a small number of them.

    Maybe the PFI is going on holiday up north soon and is happy to accept his bribes in small notes?

  8. Joe Stalin
    Happy

    Pound Notes

    Must be north of the border.

  9. Alistair
    Go

    Jersey

    They still have pound notes in Jersey......

  10. Stuart Tomlinson

    pound notes

    still got em in the IOM and Scotland :P

  11. amanfromMars Silver badge

    @Pound Notes?

    "Don't remember those, I'm sure *whistles innocently*" ....... There's many a slip 'twixt cup and bot lip, Mark. Bloody Virtual Machines, they're everywhere. :-)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cattle Prod

    "I was allowed a cattleprod at work. Would certainly liven Friday afternoons up. I'm thinking standing in the stairwell at basement level shocking the handrail which continuous metal all the way to the 8th floor at odd intervals would be fun."

    Only, that wouldn't work at all. Nevermind though :P

    I've been got with a cattle prod before, tingles a bit...

  13. Neil

    @Pound notes

    Just slang... like the guy who came to fix a window in my house recently asked if I'd be interested in "doing a deal for pound notes". By which, of course, he meant cash and off-the-books, rather than him fixing my window in return for a some out-of-use currency that I'm unlikely to have a large stack of.

  14. Dave

    Pound Notes

    OS/2 was still a supported operating system when pound notes were last issued in England.

  15. Simon Greenwood

    @Dave

    It still is, just not by IBM. Well, not that much. *wanders off to pedants' corner*

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @Pound Notes

    If Mr Travaglia is still in charge of the systems at Waikato University in NZ, he's probably not completely up to speed with the currency in the UK ... although he does have a good grasp of the idea of drinking beer by the pint these days. Lager is consumed by the Litre back home, particularly in the Hillcrest Tavern (conveniently across the road from the Uni).

    ...at least thats where I met him in the early 90's. Must have only been BOFH in training back then as I don't recall anything untoward happening to my VAX account or any of my many print jobs while I was a student there.

    (!)

  17. Huw Davies
    Go

    @Steve Evans

    If you could also resist comments along the lines of "copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny..."

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @Pound Notes

    ...In fact, good grief - he's still there after all these years:

    http://its.waikato.ac.nz/infrastructure/sad/simon-cont.shtml

    (?)

  19. Peter Kay

    OS/2 and pound notes

    OS/2 was released in 1987 - *well* after English pound notes had been withdrawn. Version 1.0 was utter crap, too.

    Nowadays, I rarely boot up the OS/2 box..

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Dave

    AN OS/2 USER! GET HIM!

  21. Andy
    Coat

    Re: Pound notes

    £5, £10, £20 & £50 notes are still called "pound notes".. made perfect sense to me. :)

  22. alyn
    Happy

    More notes

    He didn't actually specify one pound notes, just pound notes. So it could be 5, 10, or 20 pound notes etc. It would have been a pretty crap bonus if it was paid in one pound notes..

  23. Robert Moore

    OS/2

    I still have an OS/2 box in use here.

    It runs th phone system, and I leave it alone, and keep the phone service company on speed dial on my portable phone.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Anonymous coward from NZ:

    probably you NEVER called asking him to increase your disk quota... that explains why you're still alive...

  25. Simon Painter
    Flame

    Pound notes...

    Yeah, but the Scottish ones aren't real money.

    An english pound can be taken to the bank of england and exchanged for one pound sterlings worth of gold.

    A scottish pound can be taken to the bank of scotland and exchanged for one english pound.

  26. Sridhar Ayengar
    Stop

    @Simon Painter

    I thought the Pound Sterling hasn't been gold-convertible for more than thirty years.

  27. John Gamble

    Re: OS/2 and pound notes

    So the version 2.0 pound notes were a vast improvement?

  28. Colin Wilson

    Pound notes (again !)

    It'd be interesting to find out what a £20 note is actually worth now against real world objects compared to the £1 when it left circulation... (ignoring the crap the government put out about inflation, excluding "major" factors such as the cost of fuel, which it has continually milked for additional tax)

    I think my first pay packet as an apprentice in 1985 was for £192

  29. John F***ing Stepp

    On the pansy ass stungun.

    Reminds me of the time I bought my first cattle prod.

    Which I had to try out because I wasn't really sure it would work.

    On myself because no one else was willing to . . . try.

    JESUS H CHRIST!

    i CAN SMELL GOD!

    Then I realized, that was just what was left of my finger.

  30. Curtis W. Rendon
    Linux

    re; Re: OS/2 and pound notes

    versions 3 and 4 were quite wonderful. Working voice recognition out of the box for any app, object oriented icons, sweet!

  31. elgeebar
    Gates Horns

    Scottish Pound Notes... In England!!!

    Whenever I visit friends that have gone shandy drinking (i.e. now live down south) I always take one pound notes with me... It gives me so much pleasure when they try to figure out in shops a/ is it legal (yes) b/ where to put it in the till

    I guess it a BOFH kinda thing ;-)

  32. Dunhill
    Joke

    Re: OS/2 and pound notes

    WsEB 4.52 (6times) and still kicking ass, maybe for the sake of the economy i need to upgrade to Vi$ta $erver ??

  33. Andy S

    @simon painter

    >Yeah, but the Scottish ones aren't real money.

    I may be odd, but i actually keep Scottish notes specifically because they aren't legal tender and certain people(notably taxi's) don't accept them.

    I have a great excuse, working for the bank of Scotland, so whenever i am in a group who gets a taxi, i'm always first to respond, 'don't worry, i'll get it' and hand over a Scottish tenner. 99 times out of a hundred it is refused and you can say 'sorry lads that's all I've got on me'

  34. John Angelico
    Coat

    @OS/2 and pound notes (various)

    Now OS/2 is known as eCS, and v2 is due soon.

    It's OS/2 Jim, but more than OS/2 as we knew it!

    ECS could mean Europeans Converting to Sterling?

    Yes, the set in the far corner, thanks

  35. JakeyC

    @ elgeebar

    Actually, no, Scottish notes are not legal tender anywhere. That includes Scotland. The only reason they are accepted anywhere is to avoid the fuss that refusing them would cause.

    The definition of legal tender is an interesting one; there are limits to the number of coins under £1 that can be used for a single transaction for example.

  36. Brett Leach

    51m0^ u535 l33t 5p34k?

    My faith in bastardry is shattered. 5h4tt3rd 1 t3ll u.

    (cogito cogito ergo potentia)

  37. Patrick Archibald

    Network Administrator

    Interestingly (or not - you choose), no paper money is legal tender in Scotland.

  38. Sean Donnellan
    Alert

    Legal Tender

    Andy S - ".....i actually keep Scottish notes specifically because they aren't legal tender...."

    I think you'll find they are, as they are issued Sterling.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling

    However it's amazing how often you can get a fiver's worth of change when paying with a Scottish £1 note.....

  39. ben edwards

    bah to "1 pound note" conspiracy theorists

    None of the posts seems to get the concept of maybe "pound" notes was just a shortcut for 5 pound, 10 pound, 20 pound. You know, a way of saying a mix of denominations until the PFY was satisfied, without the BofH really knowing for sure how much was passed through.

  40. number-g
    Thumb Up

    password

    added to h4xX0r wordlists worldwide

  41. Quirkafleeg
    Stop

    Re: bah to "1 pound note" conspiracy theorists

    Maybe that's because those of us who don't (didn't?) get that misconcept remember using pound notes…

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm

    point is?

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Maybe.......

    .....it's because I'm old enough to remember Pound, Shilling and Pence (and being able to buy a Mars Bar for 10p, *sigh*.......) that I don't know what a PFY or BoFH is?!?

    REMEMBER....... Don't assume intelligence....... :-P

  44. ian
    Unhappy

    @sean donnellan

    You appear to be using Wikipedia as a proof of something. Care to explain your actions?

  45. Spleen

    @AC 09:54

    BOFH stands for "Bastard Operator From Hell", PFY is "Pimply-Faced Youth".

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @Spleen

    AAaaaaaahhhhhhh.......... THANK YOU!!!!

    I guess that makes me a BoFH PFOAP!!!!!! At last, a peer group I can relate to!!!

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Anonymous Coward

    "Mars Bar for 10p"; Surely you mean a Mars bar for 6d!

    Had to post anonymously, My boss reads this.

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