The price of beer - John C. Kirk — LiveJournal

12:32 am - The price of beer

Back in 2004, I re-read one of Douglas Adams' novels, where one character got upset because it was impossible to get pizza delivered in London. That may have been true when the book was written, but times have obviously changed since then.

Similarly, I re-read the start of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy a few days ago (free excerpt on my Sony Reader). This includes a scene where Ford Prefect goes into a pub and buys six pints of beer:

Ford slapped a five-pound note on the bar. He said, 'Keep the change.'
'What, from a fiver? Than you, sir.'

I initially assumed that the barman was being sarcastic, since I'm surprised that the total price would be under £5 in the first place, so there wouldn't be much change left over. However, a few pages later he buys 4 packets of peanuts, which costs him 28p. That's amazingly cheap by modern standards, so I wonder how much the beer would have cost. This book was first published in 1979; do any organisations (e.g. CAMRA) keep records of average prices?