It's in the small change

We are asked to believe that on the introduction of the euro there will be no cost of living increase.

On Sunday, at one of the airport food outlets, I bought two drinks - an ice tea and iced coffee - for Lm2.10. I paid in euros and was charged €5, precisely 0.0465c more than I should have been. It's nothing, but place this small change into various transactions during a week and it will certainly add up.

The same happened when we adopted the decimal system. The two, four and five mils fell into disuse once the changeover took place.

It is not the political but more the social dimension that one needs to consider, first and foremost costs versus wages.

Solution: Minimise costs and round up pay cheques to make up for all these minimal but frequent transactional increases.