London – Rip off capital of the world / Alexander Baron

London may be the greatest city in the world, but just as every man has his price, so does every tourist, and that price need not be in sterling.

Leicester Square in the heart of the West End is a major tourist venue.

If you are there in the summer heat you might like to buy a bottle of coke, which will set you back £1.39.

What do people do when they have had a lot to drink?

Using a public toilet in Leicester Square will set you back 50p. They used to call that spending a penny, and that was in the days when there were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound. Actually, these are not public toilets, they have now been privatised. What will some people, especially the young, do rather than pay 50p to use a not-so-public toilet? We know the answer to that.