This and that

[caddyman]

Early January weather courtesy the tropics. Warm rain on 8 January; it’s not natural. I shouldn’t be having these trials with the weather for about another six weeks. This time of year it is supposed to be deep winter: cold and dray or cold and wet. My only decision should be how much I wrap up and whether it needs to be waterproof. Instead I find that a trench coat is more than ample and possibly too warm.

On a completely different track, I have just had in my change a 2007 one pound coin (for some reason I think they are only issued late in the year so start cropping up in December and January). It has taken me a short search on google to work out what the design on the reverse is (for my overseas readers, the Royal Mint changes the reverse of a number of our coins annually or bi annually with a design to commemorate the flavour of the day). The 2007 pound coin has a very strange design on it.

Initially it looks rather like a bear trap, which seems rather odd in these politically correct can’t-swat-a-fly-because-it’s-cruel days. It turns out that it’s the Gateshead Millennium Bridge



Don’t be fooled by the picture, which shows the 2007 sterling silver proof one pound coin, they’re for collectors only. The workaday coins are made of squashed bottle tops or something similar.

Comments

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

I it's a part of a series celebrating great (?) british bridges, this one is the newcastle millenium bridge.

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2003/06/euro_notes_british_coins_and_a.html

One bridge for each component part of the UK:

2004 - Scotland - Forth Rail Bridge
2005 - Wales - Manai Suspension Bridge
2006 - Ireland - MacNeill's Egyptian Arch at Newry
2007 - England - Millennium Bridge, Newcastle/Gateshead

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

I got three 'Beartrap' coins in my change this morning.

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

Very perceptive of you sir. The Millennium bridge is actually a large 'beartrap' used to catch the giant mutant lizards and squid that occasionally rise out of the Tyne and menace Geordies.

We are, of course, too modest a people to draw to much attention to it, however.

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it's not the other way - a device to protect the innocent mutant lifeforms from predation by Geordies?

[davidt3001.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's to ensnare Mackems.

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

I believe the locals call it the EYE bridge because when it goes up and down it looks like an eye opening and closing. I saw it on a Tim Grundy programme when discovery home and leisure was TLC - oh dear that was years ago!

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

I thought initially of nu-Wembley. Then I noticed the water.

Bridges are cool though. Or is that just me?

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Bridges are cool though. Or is that just me?

On the whole I think I agree with you, though some bridges scare the crap out of me!