Well that happened to me this morning. A good friend who lives in the UK just mailed me one. I wrote him back and labeled him a "megapeach," since "a peach of a fellow" doesn't quite do it for this marvelous an act of generosity.
The value of the gift goes way beyond the currency. Fifty pounds is a good sum of money, to be sure. The first time I went to London was in 1962 and I stayed in the German YMCA for a pound a night. Granted that was a very long time ago, but I can't help marveling at the changes. But the real reason for the gift was to put into my hands this wonderful bill with Alan Turing on it - the Queen still gets the front, of course. And it's not on banknote paper. The Brits have switched to polymer, which, if you don't know what that is, is a flexible plastic. So it has a silky feel to it.
Even more remarkable, it has three areas that have see-through windows. And foil which comes in two colors. It's quite a piece of art. I think it's quite beautiful, and I know how ridiculous that sounds when describing a banknote. Counterfeiters will have their work cut out for them.
Alan Turing, as my friend reminded me, is deserving of a hero's status. The Brits drove him to an early grave for being a gay man, and let's hope that cruelty is not soon forgotten. But this generation is putting that right and recognizing how many lives he saved with his Turing machine, the precursor to the computer. On his Wikipedia page you'll find the comment that "official war historian Harry Hinselsy estimated that his work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14 million lives."
No way I'm going to spend this money gift, even if I do get back to the UK one day soon.
But it's nonetheless a gift I greatly appreciate.
photo credit
1 comment:
He was also a genius, both in the formal logic world as well as in the inception of computers.
Quite a man.
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