World: Rule, Phillitannia

When the Bank of England issued a newly designed £5 note last week, tradition-minded Englishmen were horrified to find that the 1963 model Britannia looks more like Miss Blackpool than the dumpy dowager who has traditionally ruled the waves from the nation's coins and bank notes. Stripped of her Roman helmet and a good deal of her heft, the pert new Britannia has a becoming shoulder-length hairdo to replace the sausage curls she has worn since Victorian times, even sports a toga that looks as if it had been designed by Emilio Pucci rather...

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