Money will now burn a Black hole in your pocket!

[#1]

The Royal Mint are producing a Prof Stephen Hawking commemorative 50p coin complete with 'Black Hole'. For such a genius it should be the whole set including the notes.

[#2]

Not really "new" news....

They have been making money from holes for almost a century now ! !

http://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/Blog/the-value-of-small-change

or you could say... the Royal Mint, ... was the original "Mint with the hole"... ! ! !

[#3]

The Royal Mint is based in Llantrisant in South Wales.

Llantrisant is known locally as Polo Town because of it's association with the Mint.

[#4]

The Welsh have a habit of that @agedgopher 

Sospan Fach for Llanelli is a well known example, but you should hear what they call Port Talbot further up the M4.

We resident English have our own versions. Aberystwyth is 'Have a wrist watch', and  Cwmrhydyceirw near Swansea is 'Come to Cairo' and all in good fun of course - which is why they keep nicking the sign for Llanddewi Brefi!

But we digress sorry. 

[#5]

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@agedgopher wrote:

Llantrisant is known locally as Polo Town because of it's association with the Mint.

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I've heard that some people say it's the hole with the mint in it.

[#6]

My money seems to go down a black hole every month whatever I do. 

[#7]

Never been there m'self, but I've heard it's a very nice town... unlike some we could all name.

[#8]

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@Minivanman wrote:

My money seems to go down a black hole every month whatever I do. 

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Probably the same one that's swallowing the biros and the odd socks.

[#9]

.... or the wifes purse.  

[#10]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The Royal Mint are producing a Prof Stephen Hawking commemorative 50p coin complete with 'Black Hole'. For such a genius it should be the whole set including the notes.

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Being interested in cosmology, not entirely unbiased, but yes, I'd certainly would have liked him to be on the £20 note.

[#11]

With the increasing use of debit/credit cards and the supermarkets refusing to include 2p, 10p, 50p, and £2 coins in the floats of their self-service tills, I hardly ever see those coins.  Although they are very fond of spewing out a handful of small coins when I require change, e.g. I've got 2p x 10 and 5p x 6 when I was due 50p, and often get 2p x 5 when I'm due 10p.  Oddly I always get two 1p coins rather than one 2p one.  Are the tills programmed to cause maximum inconvenience by saving up the coins they don't 'like' and then giving them out in the largest permissible number?

[#12]

@198kHz , I have a keen interest in Astrophysics but for the life of me I can't get my head to comprehend that the Universe came from nothing.

All of the matter that constitutes the Universe as we know it came from nothing! For as much as I know and understand it simply doesn't gel in my head, I can't help but think that the Bing Bang Theory is merely a convenience.

[#13]

You need some "elements" to make a "BIG BANG" in the first place, presumably,..

so that theory must be blown out of the water...if .......  "everything came from nothing"....  ? ? ? ?  

[#14]

That's my thinking @shutter, which is why I simply can't get my head around it, it just seems to convenient for me.

[#15]

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@Jonpe wrote:

With the increasing use of debit/credit cards and the supermarkets refusing to include 2p, 10p, 50p, and £2 coins in the floats of their self-service tills, I hardly ever see those coins.  Although they are very fond of spewing out a handful of small coins when I require change, e.g. I've got 2p x 10 and 5p x 6 when I was due 50p, and often get 2p x 5 when I'm due 10p.  Oddly I always get two 1p coins rather than one 2p one.  Are the tills programmed to cause maximum inconvenience by saving up the coins they don't 'like' and then giving them out in the largest permissible number?

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Although I hardly ever use cash, a ploy I have used to avoid handfuls of coins in my change from self-service tills was to put some lower value coins in before the notes / larger value coins.

e.g. say my purchase came to £6.21, instead of putting a tenner in and getting a handful of shrapnel back, I'd try and put in at least 21p in first followed by the tenner - that way I'd get £1 or £2 coins back with no small stuff.

Edit:  Or you could put the 21p plus a £1 coin followed by a tenner, and get a fiver in the change.