Instead of being a good boy and learning plenty tonight, I've mostly been playing Mario vs Sonic at the Olympics on the beloved Wii. Lucky for me, then, that my work colleague informed me, apropos of nothing, of the following information:
The currency in Egypt is the pound.
Not pounds Sterling, but the imaginatively named Egyptian pound (or gineih as it is called in, um, Egypt, throwing suspicion on the whole thing really). Some pretty basic late-night research has revealed that pounds of different varieties are also used in Sudan, Lebanon and Syria, whilst pounds sterling itself is used in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and in all Britain's island and colonies. Currencies bearing the name used to be all over the world, but as countries became independent, they decided to shake off the whole imperial vibe and switched to new currencies - tellingly, often dollars. For example, Australia switched from pounds to Australian dollars in 1966 (ditched the coin, kept the Queen - interesting).
Right, I'm off to propel a cartoon dinosaur over a pole vault...
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