I’m trying a post from the living room while watching TV. It’s not as efficient as sitting at the dining room table typing but it’s warmer and more companionable. It’s also slower, as the netbook is getting on a bit. I sometimes think that if we opened it up we would find it was put together using mahogany and brass. There’s also a lurking suspicion that my wireless signal isn’t pulling its weight. In my imagination it simply drops out of the router and saunters across to the netbook in the next room like a sulky teenager.

We are still getting orders for 1973 50p coins, as nostalgia cuts in. We did have our Brexit 50p coins from the Royal Mint earlier in the week but I forgot to take a picture. They are unimpressive and, on dull-coloured cards, look even worse. I forgot to take a photograph, but you can see one here. If you think it lacks style and looks like it was knocked out by a half-wit with a computer I would agree with you.

However, when you look at some recent designs like this one and the Olympic commemorative, it could have been a lot worse. Our coins are becoming a pitiful joke.

On 20/02/2020 the Bank of England launched the new £20 note. It is another in the polymer (plastic) series, which still isn’t exactly popular. We haven’t seen one yet but they will no doubt work their way into circulation in the next week or two.

The old ones are to be composted and used as soil improver.

And that, I think, is a natural end to the post, apart from a link to a coming auction. It’s an auction of the low numbers of the new £20 note. The very early ones go to the Queen and various institutions, and the estimates on these show how much a mad collector will pay for a low number.