DaveG38

If you go on Youtube and search out Christopher from Britannia Coins (a callow youth!), you will find loads of videos, where he goes through coin hunts of 50p and £2 coins, picking out the various designs. The videos have a certain charm to them, and he does sometimes come across interesting examples of unexpected coins. Anyway, at the start of one of these (there are a a lot), he opens up a package from, I think Cambridgeshire Coins, and this contained a rather nice album for collecting £2 coins. The coins are a press fit into a cut out in the board with the date and description, so nicer than just a coin album and flips. This might be just what you want. It might be worth a look or approach Cambridgeshire Coins (might be Cambridge Coins) to see if my memory still works!!

I don't buy this argument that he only meant language and not actions. He certainly made no such distinction in his tweet. There was nothing else going on in the 1930s that would come close to being recognisable as similar to the government's migration bill, so it is crystal clear that he was equating the Nazi approach to that of the government in order to stir up this kind of 'publicity.' Furthermore, he didn't dispel any misconceptions about what he was talking about, fully intending to leave the impression in people's minds that the government is in some way equivalent to the Nazis of the 1930s. Had he not intended to give this impression, and knowing the interest it would stir up, he would have made this clear.

I entirely accept that GL's tweet cannot in any way be held to be representative of the BBC's views. The problem, as I see it, is that the implication in his tweet that the government is acting in the same way as Nazi Germany did was clearly going to stir up a controversy. As soon as it did, the BBC had two choices. Either censure him, on the grounds that this post was offensive and reflected badly on them, a reasonable position given that the alternative approach would have been the second choice, which was to ignore it, and then watch the headlines screaming that the BBC supports the idea that the Tories are like the Nazis. The BBC were damned whichever way they went. In my view, on balance they went for the right approach because allowing such a sentiment would be harmful to the corporation. In defence of their position, pretty much any employer expects their employees to not act in a way which is detrimental to the company/business even outside of company time. When employees flout this rule, there are usually consequences. For most people, the impact of their actions are low level and of limited impact. However, when the highest paid and high profile presenter at the BBC is involved, then it becomes a different matter. FWIW, I expect GL to return, probably carry on tweeting on political matters as is his right, but to tone the rhetoric down.

I don't understand people who do this on eBay. I've recently been selling a number of coins, and it takes quite a bit of time to photo them, process the pictures, set up the auction page and load the photos onto it. To do all this, and then try and charge idiotic prices, which virtually guarantees failure to sell, seems incredibly stupid to me. Yes, I know just one sale could make it worthwhile, but is such a sale realistic? I have my doubts.

I'm completely green when it comes to old tickets, so any help appreciated. I've just bought a W&M 1693 Irish halfpenny and it has come with an old circular ticket, plus a paper holder. As far as I can judge the writing on these is from two different people, and I wondered if anybody can identify either or both of them. Any ideas? There was no clue from the vendors.

I've always liked JRM as a person, ever since that famous put-down of David Dimbleby on QT. Priceless, the lesson of which is underestimate JRM at your peril.

I have seen it reported that the truck (if that was the source of the explosion) was heading into Crimea from Russia, in which case it would have had to overcome security checks along the route. Given this, it seems doubtful to me that Ukraine would be able to achieve this attack, at least not without some collaboration from Russian dissidents.

Personally, I prefer halfpennies. There are plenty of varieties, especially in the 1700s series, and, unlike pennies, they go back to 1673, at least in copper form.

I have one in my collection. F grade only.

Over the years, I've taken a passing interest in climate issues, not to a point of being able to claim expertise, but enough for me to consider the issue as a whole. My impression is that the studies of climate change tend to focus on the recent past, generally correlating with the industrial revolution, rather than focus on the more distant past, and as result it seems to me that conclusions are drawn on too narrow a set of data. This is not to say that there are not studies of the distant past, but rather that those don't appear to me to inform the discourse on this subject at the present time. To give an example, towards the end of the last period of glaciation, about 12,000 years ago, the earth began to warm, but suddenly plunged back into bitter cold for a period known as the Younger Dryas. This lasted for about 1000 years, and towards the end of this time, the earth suddenly warmed by 4 degrees C in 25 years!! Nobody, as I understand it, claims to understand what might have caused this rapid warming through any natural phenomena, yet according to the record of the Greenland ice cores, it definitely occurred. This is just one example of variation that is not well understood, yet which must undeniably be ascribed to anything other than man's activities. Hence, it may be that today's warming may be nothing to do with Man. When I add in the obvious fact that climate science is very much statistical in its approach, and relies on a great deal of interpretation for its conclusions, I find myself sceptical about the conclusions. This is not through any dogma on my part, but simply because I like scientific conclusions to be based on verifiable facts and the replicability of experiments to demonstrate a position, and this is simply not easy to do with climate science. My position, therefore, is that I don't deny the facts of climate change: increased CO2, sea temperatures and levels, glaciers melting etc. but I remain unconvinced that Man in his arrogance assumes it must be because of us. Now stands back to await the brickbats!!

Very nicely put. Now that you mention it, I think you are right about the 13 episodes. I also believe that PMG only had a hazy idea of the ending, maybe the general principles only, but in the haste to put something together he went with outrageously psychedic and iconically 1960s imagery, chucking anything into the pot that worked. It must have been fun to come up with.

I think the clue to the main reason for this lies in the total number of episodes of the whole series, which was 17. I'm not sure that any other series has had such an odd number before finishing. My understanding is that the filming was incredibly expensive - it did use some cutting edge techniques for its time - and Lew Grade (I think it was) was getting nervous about the spiralling costs. Patrick McGoohan, whose series it essentially was, was told to wrap it up PDQ. Hence the last two episodes seem slightly disconnected from the rest. It is also likely that these two were rather cobbled up in a hurry, with little real build up to them, and were likely hastily scripted around PMG's own, not completely clear, vision of how the whole thing should end. I seem to recall that there was originally envisaged that there would be 24 episodes made, which means 7 are 'missing.' To the best of my knowledge, there are at least 2 for which scripts, or at least story outlines, were produced, but were rejected at the time by PMG. Whether these would have added to our understanding, I'm not sure, since the whole series was, I think, intended to leave the viewer guessing, even though some of the explanations were subtly there. For instance, in the final few seconds of the final episode, when the butler stands at the door of the prisoner's house, the door opens automatically, as doors did in the village, suggesting quite clearly, that for all the appearence of his escape, he was really still trapped. My view is that if anybody tries to discern explanations for everything that went on, they will drive themselves crazy because the explanations just aren't there, deliberately. That's what I liked about the whole thing. In my view there has been nothing remotely so unusual and interesting since.

Good idea. It didn't seem to fit in with pennies, except for the penny farthing bicycle in the ending credits. I'm happy to continue on the prisoner theme, but elsewhere on this forum.

OK, here's my take on the original and the suggested sequal. The original series concerned the attempts by 'Number 6' to escape from the 'village', a surrealistic organisation which was responsible for kidnapping, imprisoning and brainwashing people who had vital information, or who discovered their existence. At the same time, the 'village' used advanced scientific techniques to maintain their control over those they imprisoned, including number 6. Number 6 generally managed to outwit or overcome the efforts to force him to conform to the standards of the 'village' and explain why he resigned from his job as a secret agent, and eventually escaped, destroying the 'village' as he did so. My suggested revival resurrects the establishment of a 'village' in a modern setting, but now with number 6 on the outside in the normal world, where he learns of the re-establishment of the 'village'. He then sets out to find and destroy this new 'village' as he did the old, and the 'village' uses all its powers and technology to prevent him from finding them. In other words, my idea changes the original direction of the programme from a series of escape attempts, and inverts it into a quest, but with the same broad theme behind it. Each episode had its own encompassing title, which described the theme of the episode, as in the original, and each used a number of fantasy ideas to build the story. In each episode number 6 is thwarted by the village, but keeps on trying, getting closer all the time. At the end, number 6 discovers the new 'village' and attempts to destroy it, only for the village to say 'gotcha' and he finds himself a prisoner once again. Hence, the title 'Prisoner's Return' for the whole series. The end. A bit obvious perhaps? What do you think?

I did watch the remake, but I'm afraid that the 'modernisation' wasn't to my taste. The original was of its time, whereas the recent re-make didn't have much to mark it out as different from any other weird and wonderful sci-fi production. For me, it also didn't really have any kind of central theme or message.

Back in the day, I wrote a new series for the Prisoner, entitled Prisoner's Return - the clue to the theme of the series is in the title. There were 10 episodes in all, with basic outlines for two more. Unfortunately, ITC who owned the copyright at the time weren't keen to develop it, so the furthest it ever got was onto a website I designed around 2000 or so. Like my proposal, the website is now defunct!

I've just had a renewal quote from my classic car insurers, and they have, yet again, jumped the cost by a significant margin, so much so that I looked elsewhere. The result was that I managed to halve the premium for better cover. Now, I have just received my quote for the cover for my coin collection, and the total is astronomic. In short for a collection housed in secure storage in a bank, I'm being charged over double the cost of my house and contents insurance. Clearly, the risks of a claim on the property must be much higher than that of a bank heist involving my coins, yet I'm being charged through the nose this year. I get that the insurance company is providing specialised insurance and this is likely to be higher than normal, but twice the cost of something with much higher risks? So, does anybody have any recommendations as to who to approach for a new quote for coin collection insurance? For information the existing policy is arranged through the brokers at Exeter.

How do their rates compare to Rob's 0.5% of total value?

Ouch! That would result in a doubling of my already highly quoted premium! It looks like I'll have to shell out to the present insurer again.

I went down this route some years ago, and because my house insurer is a bog-standard one, they weren't willing to go beyond the 'script' they normally use. It's a good idea, but probably would involve having to investigate other insurers, and then change mine out, which is a bit more of a faff than I can be bothered with.

He'll soon deal with the cabinet rats as they enter the building.

Depends on the dates and denominations. For example, for the George V shilling, you have the following mixes: 1920-22 Silver 50%, Copper 40% and Nickel 10% (Some 1921 shillings contain a small amount of Manganese) 1922-27 Silver 50% and Copper 50% 1927-36 Silver 50%, Copper 40%, Nickel 5% and Zinc 5%

Clearly Einstein didn't understand quantum mechanics!!

He's not the David Mason of World Coins, Canterbury (now defunct) fame is he?

My example of this type - mintmark key, is very thin, if this helps at all.