England v South Africa Lord’s ODI report from 2008

Ged Ladd writes:

A Sunday at Lord’s with Daisy. We sat in the Mound Stand, next to a charming South African gentleman and his Zimbabwean friend. We chatted with them.

In particular, the Zimbabwean gentleman explained the currency chaos prevailing in Zimbabwe at that time; sacks full of bank notes to buy basic items, the authorities producing ever larger, ludicrously large denomination bank notes; worthless before they had even rolled off the printing presses.

I asked the gentleman if I might buy some from him as humorous prizes for our Z/Yen edutainment games. He said he had none with him but sack loads at home. He said his wife would bring some for me when she was next in London, in a few weeks’ time.  We exchanged contact details.

A thunderstorm came; the gentlemen skedaddled, despite Daisy’s and my accurate prediction that the rain would soon pass.

A few weeks’ later, a mysterious woman arrived at Z/Yen’s City office with an enormous envelope stuffed with massive denomination Zimbabwean dollar bank notes.

As we Lord’s folk say; another day, another several hundred billion dollars.

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