TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

GREAT BRITAIN: Think Decimal!

Princess Margaret doubted that she would ever understand the system. Nervous housewives stocked up on groceries to save themselves the anguish of trying to figure out how much change they should be getting. D (for Decimal) Day is at hand. Next week the British will join the rest of the world by switching to a decimal currency system. Even though they have had five years to prepare for the event, many of them are saying that the D stands for Derangement.

Even the British have long recognized that their currency system, which...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.