Paddy

The little earwig was a keen footballer almost from the day he hatched. Despite his disadvantages and bullying he worked his way up to the school first team, where he was head-hunted to join his local professional team. The manager struggled to find kit to fit him and had to have a special shirt made for him. Due to an error at the manufacturers, it had the number "0" on the back instead of the intended "20". At his first match he was on the subs bench for the first half, but sent on early in the second with his team 2-0 down. Quickly his amazing ability to weave through the opposition defence proved decisive and he kept scoring! Soon the home fans were rejuvenated and as he slipped in his third to take the lead, you could hear them chanting: "Earwig Oh! Earwig Oh! Earwig Oh!"

A couple of years ago I had one tracked to the US. Tracking showed it handed over to the Customs people at JFK and thereafter, disappeared. Customs refused to acknowledge receipt, Royal Mail refused refund as it had left their control. £200 coin lost.

I had a package for Israel - it got sent to Illinois when the Royal Mail misinterpreted the international country code "IL". It came back to me about 3 months later and I resent it to the buyer, so eventually he was happy.

Don't get me wrong - if I see one (or for that matter "any") decent penny going cheap enough, I will bag it! I have built up most of my collection "on the cheap" and occasionally made a decent profit on the side too. But I am not a "serious" variety collector, unlike many on here I know. I don't feel comfortable laying out a lot of money on a variety that requires a magnifying glass and an expert book or website to identify. Each to their own! 😃

Not that I go for all these varieties, I would fight shy of that one because the really interesting feature - the Medusa's head - is not visible. We know it is there because of the other identifiers, but you can't see it in the pictures.

Well I guess the bottom line of the first section is "4 ice cubes" and the next bit is "stirred 3 times"...?

My mother was a continuity girl on African Queen during the filming in South Africa - as a result she was a dab hand at spotting errors of this sort. For me it is usually when they stray into the realms of the military that my hackles rise. In an early Doctor Who the "Nuclear Bomb squad" was called out - a "Major" in the Royal Engineers was supposedly in charge, except that he was wearing an "Other Ranks" hat badge and his beret was pulled down on the wrong side. Yet another reason for me to hide behind the sofa!

Ah, well that confirms it was Father Andrew I think as the school was in Weybridge!

I wonder if A R Alexander was the priest who helped my early interest in coins at school? He was Father Andrew (Alexander) and he had an extensive collection of British coins. He was always happy to help us boys with identification and grading of coins. Also smoked Balkan Sobranie in a pipe, which was very impressive to a 12 year-old. He was one of the good priests at the school. (Don't ask about the bad ones.) He died only a couple of years ago having spent the previous 20 years in a rest home for priest in the school grounds. I kept meaning to arrange to go to see him, but now it is too late.

Well this one just gave me a jump! Sorting through an old dealer's box of random coins marked at 50p each (I bought the box of 100+ coins for £5) I was stopped in my tracks by this one. Obviously a fake, but not bad as they go and should give some good banter in the market!

I am not on Facebook either, but you can still watch it if you ignore the requests to log on... I only managed the first 2 mins, then I saw it was 2 1/2 hours long! I have better things to do with my time. The start is a bunch of detectorists in a hole in the ground scratching at a corroded hoard...

You got my one from earlier in this thread?

I assume this one of mine is wavy 2 then?

Can I have some of whatever he is smoking?

I actually quite like that one - not as a coin but as an ornament. However at around 5 times bullion I will not be buying.

Ah - I can see the answer to that one, but I will let others have a ponder rather than posting the solution straight away!

Ditto.

I was using the word "realistic" in relation to our expectation that the rest of the world should adopt democracy as the optimum. I was in Hong Kong in the 1980s when democracy was being pushed by the then British rule. The reaction of the local populace was interesting - the bulk of the local Chinese could not grasp the concept and were fearful of expressing any political opinion. I suspect it is now part of their evolutionary DNA after thousands of years during which expressing any dissent from the ruling Emperor was a short cut to execution. Yes, some of the more intelligent and Westernised took to the idea enthusiastically, but it is that minority that are now suffering the wrath of the dictatorship. For most of the West, democracy in one form or another is now ingrained, and unlikely to be replaced. It does not always produce the best results for society as we tend to oscillate from one extreme to another. For some reason the middle ground seems elusive - parties that claim to represent it never do well.

It seems some countries are predisposed to choose to be run by dictators/emperors. Both Russia and China have spent most of their history this way, and despite brief forays into democracy in the 20th century, have now reverted to form. Maybe it is us in the West, with our fixation on democracy, who are being unrealistic in our expectations?

OK - I surrender - I have ordered one now too. I wonder if Wayne is on commission? If not, why not!

There was another good one before Ebay cottoned on and deleted his id: whale_oil_beef_hooked

In the early days of Ebay I spotted a seller with a number of badly identified coins, which puzzled me. Then I saw his ID - norfolk_n_idea!

I was encountering a similar problem yesterday, but I think it was because the internet was particularly busy and I had some update already downloading. Maybe, if the bandwidth is not available the software ignores the request until things improve?

For reference, the tip posted before was the use of "Ctrl Z" to back track on any mistake you make within Windows. So, for example, if you have inadvertently deleted a block of text, or moved a folder in your email somewhere you can't find it, if you hit Ctrl Z it will backtrack your last action, miraculously amending your mistake. Repeated hits of Ctrl Z will keep backtracking as far as the last Save in that application. (Either a deliberate save or one caused by closing the app.) So if you suddenly realise you have made a mistake, don't panic and close the app - use Ctrl Z to recover!