The pound is against the yen

Once upon a time, before prices were blamed on crude oil, there was this guy who had a more concrete reason for his economic state. The pound was against the yen, he said. My memory is a bit of a blur but I believe he had had a few beers before making this proclamation. Or maybe there was no guy at all and all this memory is is a bunch of residual neural activity conjuring up pseudo-memories.

Back to the present. So I'm enquiring about the price of some items and the guy behind the counter exclaims that the price has gone up. Everybody knows prices have gone up, I think to myself, but the expression on his face doesn't seem remotely connected to NOCK, refineries or pipelines. And the way he made sure to say it even before he checked the actual price made me rather concerned. Like he was putting out those caveat emptor things. Kisa na maana? "The swiss franc has really strengthened recently". Shock on me. My disbelief was tempered ever so slightly because I'd seen a news item about the said same thing. I certainly didn't think stuff going on in switzerland would affect an ordinary guy halfway across the world. Apart, of course, from the monstrosity that is FIFA.

All in all, I got a reminder today that if I'm being charged an extra 10 bob in the mat, it may very well be because the pound is against the yen. Or the strength of the swiss franc.