What a flake

Well, we're still waiting for internet at home, but we still want to post a few more pictures to our blog once we're set up at home. In the meantime, Karen and I have been running around town looking for jobs, attending interviews, etc. In between interviews, I've managed to spend some time at various museums around town. Fortunately, a lot of the museums in London are free.

After working in the financial district of London (the City) for 6 years and not having visited before, I finally got the chance to visit the Bank of England Museum. The Bank of England has been around since 1694 so there was lots to see, including lots of old notes (the Royal Mint issues coins while the Bank of England issues notes; in Scotland and Northern Ireland (but not Wales), individual banks are allowed to issue their own notes) and tracing the history of modern money. You even get the opportunity to lift a solid gold bar (13 kilograms).

One of the more interesting things was the list of former governors of the Bank of England. A favorite was the governor from 1918-1920, Sir Brien Ibrican Cokayne. Sure, you can try to hide your addicition in a fancy spelling, but we all know he got knighted for providing charlie to the king. Actually, looking into it, it was his father, George, who changed the family name from Adams to Cokayne. Hmmm, nothing suspicious about that at all, is there? George actually had some sweet jobs during his life, including the rather glamorously titled Rouge Dragon Pursuivant. Now that's the title I'm going to demand from my next job. One previous holder of the position in the 1500s was a guy named Fulk ap Howell. Now I'm sure his colleagues never made fun of his name when he made a mistake.

Getting back to Bank of England governors, my other favorite names (and there are a lot to chose from) were: Delillers Carbonnel, who was succeeded by Stamp Brooksbank; there's also Sheffield Neave followed by Bonamy Dobree.