The Board is recommending a final dividend of seven pence per share, which makes a total dividend for the year of ten p per share, identical to last year.
Long ago, all American schoolchildren knew the historical story of how Abraham Lincoln walked five miles to return a penny he had overcharged a customer.
The penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from a two-way conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of firms controlling the media.
Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.