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50p for your thoughts...

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kermit

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I suspect that, like many activities that seem exciting and satisfying beforehand, this will turn out to be a severe disappointment. That's assuming that your dad lets you use the hammer?
I bet my dad's bigger than your dad! (actually he's been dead nigh on 40 years, so it's a rhetorical bet....)
 
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furnessvale

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Should any of these coins come my way, they will be having a meaningful discussion with the hammer and anvil I keep in my shed, followed by an appointment with the recycling truck. Petty, perhaps, but satisfying, and unlikely to cost me more than a couple of quid!
Asuming each coin costs less than 50p to mint, I'm sure HMG will be pleased at your voluntary contribution to the national finances by permanently removing them from circulation at your own expense.

Even better that you will put the metal into recycling for minting the replacement coins! :D
 

Busaholic

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I bet my dad's bigger than your dad! (actually he's been dead nigh on 40 years, so it's a rhetorical bet....)
Can you even buy a hammer now? My wife ordered a paring knife, for vegetables, from Amazon before Christmas: the bell rang in our flat one morning, I struggled down the stairs (more urgent ringing) to receive the small package. ''I need age I.D. before you can have this'' Me; ''well, as you can see, I'm over 70 and struggle to walk with a stick, but here's my bus pass'' ''No, no, has to be photo I.D. driving licence or passport'' ''You'll have to wait then, as I'll have to go up to the second floor while I find it''. All that, to receive a knife that has just about enough strength to take the skin off a rice pudding. Wouldn't mind if all this nonsense actually prevented the people doing the knifings not getting hold of them, but sadly it's had no effect.
 

AM9

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Why not keep them? In a few years they might be worth four or five new pounds each.
Only as collectors' coins as by then we'llhave ten shilling note in our pockets, - none of this metric stuff forced on us by the EU.
(fog in channel, - Europe cut off) :)
 

kermit

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This thread prompted me to do a bit of digging for info about the new coins. Apparently there are more than 900 million 50p coins in circulation, and the Mint plan to strike 10 million Brexit coins. In 1973, the Mint struck 90 million of the "nine hands" coins celebrating our entry to the EU (I remember them well.....). So between the likely activities of Brexiteer souvenir hunters, and coin-smashing Remainer zealots like myself, I think encountering these coins in day to day life will be unusual to say the least!
 

najaB

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I would think EVERY special edition coin, including the many "celebrating" our membership of the EU, has been minted on the orders of government
Many are, but most are not. For example I doubt very much that they were burning the midnight oil in Whitehall deciding between Paddington Bear and Peter Rabbit....
 

kermit

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I couldn't give a monkeys chuff as long as the vending machine accepts it for my packet of Ready Salted crisps :)

Dangerously veering off topic here, but I remember being outraged at the inflationary effect of decimalisation on the price of a bag of crisps - they got "rounded up" from 5d to two-and-a-half-new-pence (6d!!). And at the time of issue, the 50p coin was the highest value coin in the world, apparently, worth 20 bags of crisps!
 

furnessvale

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Many are, but most are not. For example I doubt very much that they were burning the midnight oil in Whitehall deciding between Paddington Bear and Peter Rabbit....
In turn I doubt ANY coin of the realm is minted without government approval even if it is Peter Rabbit.
 

DarloRich

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Should any of these coins come my way, they will be having a meaningful discussion with the hammer and anvil I keep in my shed, followed by an appointment with the recycling truck. Petty, perhaps, but satisfying, and unlikely to cost me more than a couple of quid!

Pop them in the post to me and i will spend them for you.

I couldn't give a monkeys chuff as long as the vending machine accepts it for my packet of Ready Salted crisps :)

this is the winning answer. Close thread.
 

scotrail158713

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I couldn't give a monkeys chuff as long as the vending machine accepts it for my packet of Ready Salted crisps :)
this is the winning answer. Close thread
Since this is a rail forum, what’s the difference between this and a train though? Some people on here will care if it’s, for example, a 68 hauling the 17.18 round the Fife Circle tonight, but most passengers just want a train of any sort.

(Although I also agree with both of you - 50p is 50p for me)
 

Lucan

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some people have very little to worry about. In other news the NHS is falling apart, criminal justice is on it rse, the police have lost about 25% of their numbers, people are using foodbanks and homelessness is through the roof but yeah, a comma.
Having written many technical documents concerning plant in heavy industry, and dealing with industrial accidents (including a railway one BTW), I can assure you that punctuation can be very important indeed. Someone unwittingly taking the wrong meaning of something, in a specification or operating instruction for example, could really be a life-or-death matter. Stuff I wrote was peer reviewed (and I peer reviewed other stuff in turn) and possible ambiguities were ironed out in meetings in which wording and its punctuation were often refined at length.

I was taught at school not to place a comma before "and", but my experience in technical writing has instead made me favour the Oxford comma.

As for people having more important things to do, like being a doctor or feeding the hungry, we cannot all run around doing everything. It is more effective to have people doing what they are best at - keeping industrial plant running in my case, in which writing unambiguous specifications and operating instructions is a part.
 

prod_pep

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I don't use the serial comma, apart from on a select few occasions to avoid ambiguity.

It looks clunky because it is usually redundant, in the same way that I detest "outside of" when simply "outside" is correct. Less is often more.
 

Busaholic

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Dangerously veering off topic here, but I remember being outraged at the inflationary effect of decimalisation on the price of a bag of crisps - they got "rounded up" from 5d to two-and-a-half-new-pence (6d!!). And at the time of issue, the 50p coin was the highest value coin in the world, apparently, worth 20 bags of crisps!
AND they got rid of the bag of salt - I never added it, much prefer without.
 

Cowley

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Cannot agree with that. It was always a highlight of the year if a bag somehow accidentally had 2 or 3 bags of salt in it.
I never had such a lucky thing as having more than 1 sachet of salt in a the bag of crisps. I think it would have blown my mind.
 

DaleCooper

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I never had such a lucky thing as having more than 1 sachet of salt in a the bag of crisps. I think it would have blown my mind.

Don't let envy eat away at you otherwise you will never again be able to get true enjoyment from a packet of crisps.
 

GusB

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AND they got rid of the bag of salt - I never added it, much prefer without.
Although the price of crisps is veering way off topic, you'll be pleased to know that Salt & Shake is alive and well, complete with bag of salt. I suspect the size of the blue bag has shrunk, and in these days of shrinkflation I wouldn't be surprised if the crisp bag had as well.

https://www.walkers.co.uk/crisps-range/walkers-crisps/saltnshake

(other savoury snack manufacturers are available)
 

Darandio

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I never had such a lucky thing as having more than 1 sachet of salt in a the bag of crisps. I think it would have blown my mind.

It was quite the experience, balanced out when the bag had no sachet at all. This was in the old Smiths days though.
 

Busaholic

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Ah great days...
Best crisps are Burts, shame they're so expensive: first came across them in the wonderfully eccentric Oddbins off-licence in Truro, everything an off-licence should be. Needless to say, long gone.
 

py_megapixel

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Best crisps are Burts, shame they're so expensive: first came across them in the wonderfully eccentric Oddbins off-licence in Truro, everything an off-licence should be. Needless to say, long gone.
Burt's Crisps are still around aren't they? I've seen them in pubs from time to time.

Returning to this thread's topic of discussion:
  • Amazon avoids most taxation and is notorious for poor working conditions
  • Nestlé makes large profits from draining water supplies and selling the water in bottles
  • Coca-Cola uses huge amounts of energy and water to produce their products and is one of the world's largest contributors to plastic waste
I could continue.

Of all the things to boycott, the absence of what many consider an unnecessary piece of punctuation in a sentence which the vast majority of people never even read, let alone analyse, seems pathetically trivial.
 
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