Euros welcome in Cheltenham

It's 'race week' in Cheltenham which culminates in 'Gold Cup' day on Friday which, conveniently, is also St Patrick's day. For one week only each year many of our shops and pubs happily take euros because of all the Irish in town but I'm not sure what sort of exchange rate is on offer. I need some euros for my holiday, perhaps I should set up a little bureau de change. I hate paying for foreign money, it seems such a rip off. The so-called no commission con is easy to detect just by looking at the difference between the buying and selling prices.

They ought to have somewhere at airports where people leaving the country could exchange directly with those arriving. But, as airports make more money out of their shopping and banking activities than they do out of 'planes, that's never likely to happen. Can you buy cash on ebay?

I've pretty well given up hope that Britain'll join the euro in my lifetime and, despite my extreme European enthusiasm, even I'm not convinced it would be A Good Idea.......