Maybe we should go back to wearing gloves… (Picture: Getty Images/Bloomberg Creative)
Do you have any idea where your money has been?
Hand sanitizer at the ready – in today’s MetroTalk, a reader shares the pitfalls of physical money and it’s enough to put anyone off carrying cash for life.
Meanwhile, readers share their thoughts on why venues are still suffering to get customers post-covid, what they think of the astronomical dinner party on the edge of earth and their theories on the origin of a mysterious disease.
Share what you think about these topics in the comments.
Cash is unhygienic and less convenient than you think
Ew. (Picture: In Pictures via Getty Images)
Clare wants to boycott non-cash businesses because of the ‘dangers’ and vulnerabilities of a cashless society (MetroTalk, Wed).
I’d rather not buy food or drink from someone handling cash – it’s filthy and has been near bums and groins in pockets, been picked up off the street, sat in purses and wallets full of other detritus or used in pub toilets for other activities.
My overriding memory of cash is queuing at cashpoints or waiting while a cashier calls for more change.
Some ATMs can feel unsafe and we can’t all get into a branch with our working hours. If you’re unfortunate to be mugged or lose your wallet, your cash is more likely never to be recovered.
People think businesses need it but I found it a hassle – losing time cashing up, hoping it balanced and having to work late with no pay to reconcile… Try doing that for 100 tills in a department store.
In smaller businesses, overnight security was a worry, as was losing working hours going to the bank.
People fear technological errors but when I grew up with a lot of power cuts, no one was saying electricity was a failure and we should return to gas lamps. Joe, London
METRO TALK – HAVE YOUR SAY
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‘Why can’t I just turn up to a venue and pay?’
Why should anyone be surprised that venues are still suffering from the pandemic, with visitor numbers below pre-Covid numbers (Metro, Mon).
Many of them are still applying the arrangements they put in place during the pandemic. Try booking for an exhibition in London and you will be asked to go online, register with the organisation, supply masses of confidential information, choose a particular day and time, pay online and accept lots of advertising.
This, instead of ringing up or turning up and paying. If they insist on making it difficult for customers to purchase their products, customers won’t bother. Many pubs in Brighton will not accept cash – you have to have a smart phone and a contactless card, even order and pay online. Unfortunately, the customers who avoid them do not contact them to explain why they have lost their custom compared with pre-pandemic levels. Rupert Morris, Penge
Dinner at the edge of space? That’ll be £391,000
Not suitable for those with a phobia of heights or the average bank balance (Credits: Space Perspective/SWNS)
Regarding the £391,000-a-head dinners in Spaceship Neptune, suspended below a vast balloon that ascends to an altitude of 20 miles (Metro, Wed). At least people won’t be able to run off without paying. Jon, Wallington
It made me smile to read how town chiefs coated buildings in a paint that causes liquid to bounce off in a bid to combat Cheltenham Festival-goers from urinating in public (MetroTalk, Wed). If only a similar product could be made to repel dog mess deposited on pavements and sending it straight back to the owner! Tina, Manchester
Would somebody please think of the hedgehogs and journalistic integrity
Hedgehogs eat slugs (Picture: Getty Images/imageBROKER RF)
To Barbara (MetroTalk, Tue). Please don’t use slug pellets as they are very bad for hedgehogs. They should be banned. Gina, via email
I fully agree with Ofcom warning GB News it broke broadcasting rules of impartiality by using MPs as presenters (Metro, Wed).
A journalist, especially a broadcast journalist, is there to ask questions and put truth to power.
What GB News has done is make a mockery of public service journalism. It is not democracy.
GB News should never be encouraged at all, for they are well known to be anti-woke and also misogynistic. Suresh Abboodass, London
Could Havana Syndrome actually be in the ear?
Scientists used MRI scans to look for signs of brain injury (Picture: Getty/Westend61)
Scientists remain in the dark as to the nature of Havana Syndrome, which causes ringing in the ears, nausea, brain fog and a sensitivity to light and sound (Metro, Tue).
Its origin is 2016, when US and Canadian embassy staff in the Cuban capital began experiencing unusual and unexplained health problems.
It led to speculation they had been hit by something like a microwave weapon.
There is a simple explanation. It is not a known unknown, or even an unknown unknown, but an unknown known – in other words, it’s a lack of recognition of a common but elusive disorder.
As the latest research shows, it is not a neurological disease. The place to look is in the ear, not the brain.
The symptoms are only too familiar to sufferers of Meniere’s disease, an ear condition. The pathological basis for this is endolymphatic hydrops, due to pressure change in the inner ear.
Often the otological symptoms – that is, symptoms of ear disease – are not as prominent as the secondary psychological or psychiatric ones, such as brain fog, so the attention of boffins is misdirected towards a primary defect in the brain, the mind or the personality.
Tinnitus can be particularly misleading symptom to the patient, as its internal otic origin – that is, within the ear – is not immediately recognised and a false external source is suspected.
An excellent description of this extended syndrome, in William Rockcliff, a case of John Woodward (1757) included a suspicion from bystanders that his complaints were imaginary. AG Gordon, London
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