Peckris

I do believe it's a 20th Century invention, in fact quite late perhaps? I know that the average Birmingham 1970s Indian restaurant is no definitive guide, but I don't ever remember seeing it on the menu back then. Nor, in the early 1980s, on the menu of an authentic Indian cuisine in Bearwood Birmingham - they had Chicken Tikka, they had Tandoori Chicken, and they had Butter Chicken Masala, but they didn't have Chicken Tikka Masala even though it was already becoming rather popular by then.

As someone with progressive MS, I echo your point about health versus money. But it would be nice (or a compensation) to have at least one of those!

Possibly somewhere like Siam? The script doesn't look a million miles away from this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tn2C8pUud4Y/Tmwzz8DFUlI/AAAAAAAAAYY/zBRkMBztNBM/s640/C005+Siam+King+Rama+V+ATT+coin+40b.jpg

Nice that you've got a spare 30 grand knocking about to spend on coins. Would that we were all in such a happy position.

It's a mistake to think that 'brightness' is necessarily a sign of cleaning. Polishing would cause it, but looks very unnatural, while dipping actually reduces brightness (increases LIGHTNESS, i.e. colour, but reduces lustre). A coin that has retained its BU condition might indeed look 'bright' and there are many 19th Century silver coins that have a mirror finish, almost prooflike.

Err it's British or more accurately Scottish, reported to have been invented in a restaurant in Glasgow. Don't you mean Chicken Tikka Masala? I understand that was invented in Britain, though tikka and masala are (separately) authentically Indian.

Goddards contains uric acid rather than sulphuric acid if I remember right.

You mean ma'a salaama ?

That series is fraught with danger - contemporary forgeries of all silver denominations, usually silver-washed copper. But don't despair - seuk is fast becoming recognised as THE expert on them! (However, the non-contemporary Chinese fakes are much more worrying and harder to spot )

Hi Azda Yes it has arrived. We spoke about it in Goom's "just an idea" thread, http://www.predecimal.com/forum/topic/8314-just-an-idea/page-2 cheers Garrett. I thought this was the "Nothing to do with coins" forum?

The 1921 shilling also has both obverse varieties, but the earlier type is much rarer - don't be misled by Spink who don't seem to realise this simple fact.

...probably just collectors having a laugh, wanting to see what happens to this "penny"

No, I guess not right next to each other, but only a yard or so apart and the coins are in an album. Would that make that much difference? After all, the atmosphere and its impurities in which they both live is much the same. If the coins are in flips, in the album, then they're protected to a great extent from the atmospheric conditions which the frame is exposed to.

You're suggesting Gerrard is secretly in the pay of the Uruguayans? Well, I suppose if George W Bush organised 9/11, anything's possible...

Suarez is a racist himself Not so. It's not racist for a Liverpool player to insult a ManU player. Suarez gets on perfectly with all his team-mates, whether that be Sturridge or Flanagan, Sterling or Gerrard, Johnson or Mignolet, Sakho or Skrtl.

Azda, Accepted, thank you, with no hard feelings. I don't think its a matter of taking the pound back. The currency of the UK is the pound and if Scotland leaves the UK it can continue to use the pound, as any country can, but what it loses is any control over that currency. That's a simple consequence of independence. There's nothing childish about the government's position on a formal currency union, since it would not be in the UK's interest to enter into one. Obvious really when you look at the state of the eurozone where the currency union has all but failed without political union. It will only work if the Eurozone countries enter into a closer political union, but this is the opposite direction from that being taken by Scotland. That means no currency union with Scotland. Only the bilndly prejudiced or politically dishonest claim otherwise. Doesn't piss me off in the slightest. I'm just surprised that you would post something that is so clearly prejudicial to the Scots, since the underlying view it gives is not a very flattering one. I don't particularly care, but I thought those Scots who like to be regarded as friendly, welcoming and inclusive might have taken exception to the caricature of them that it depicted, especially the underlying grain of truth it contains. Not strictly true. The eurozone was doing fine until the worldwide banking crisis in 2008. Ok, you could argue that it thereby failed its first real test, but it's not inherent to a currency union that political union is necessary before it can work. After all, the currency union was a logical 'next step' given the Common Market that had preceded it was successful for 30 or 40 years.

...plink, ting ting ting ting ting. Oh dear, it seems to have rolled under the table. Let me just.. hmm. No, there's now a filthy great scratch on it, sorry. Heads or tails? Hard to tell. The cat was sick on it and then it picked up a load of fluff. I'm not touching it with a bargepole.

...plink, ting ting ting ting ting. Oh dear, it seems to have rolled under the table. Let me just.. hmm. No, there's now a filthy great scratch on it, sorry.

When you say "right next to them", do you mean that literally? The photo frame is stored along with the coins? If 'yes', then I'm as much in the dark as you are, but if you mean 'next to the cabinet / trays / albums (or wherever the coins are)' then the answer would be - atmospheric conditions, from which coins, properly stored, are comparatively free.

Will someone please explain to Dave the difference between racism and xenophobia? You can't be racist just because you insult a 'foreigner'. White Englishman insults white Frenchman : xenophobia White Englishman insults Algerian living in France : racism White Englishman insults his next-door neighbour, Englishman of Jamaican origin : racism. It's not difficult. Just because someone is a foreigner doesn't mean they're a different race than you are.

Have you read the reviews? "My wife is a small frame but she has a bit of a pooch" A chihuahua? A shitzu? Mrs Slocombe's second cousin?

England weren't good, but they weren't as bad as portrayed either. We played better than Spain (which isn't saying a lot), and there are a lot of very tricky so-called 'lesser' teams in this tournament - perm any from Algeria, Costa Rica, Columbia, Uruguay, Australia .. the list goes on. It's very hard to consistently win international matches these days, unless your name is Germany or Spain '08 - '12. Anyway, we didn't lose to Uruguay. We lost to Luis Suarez, who scored two brilliant opportunistic goals that few other strikers would have got. Apart from him, we were better than them in most departments, but they - as is so often the case with England - had the bigger point to make and a bigger appetite for the game and more determination and fight to win.

I've never had a problem with PayPal so far, touch wood.

But that goal by Cahill was something, wasn't it?

What odds did you get on Chile, Peter?