The last time our currency hit stg 80p

Many moons ago, after we broken the exchange link with sterling, but long before the advent of the euro, the punt had dropped back to a value of stg80p.

At the same time, the price of the pint was increasing, through a combination of excise duty increases and the brewers/publicans margins, and rapidly approaching the then almost unimaginable price of 80p (god be with the days!).

I recall a TV sketch at the time featured Eamon Morrissey, studying his pint at the bar and, shaking his head in wonder, asking: “Who’da thought the punt would hit 80p before the pint?”

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, and neither is the real price of the pint.