Since posting yesterday on the commemorative ("Offside") 50p coin from the Royal Mint (UK), I have had a few requests for more information. I had done a little searching, by no means exhaustive, after I read some news reports, and here is what I sent to the author of one of the requests:
Go to the official site for The Royal Mint (UK) and there they have details of how to buy bullion, if you want, and any of their coins. For the olympic coins, go to the site below *. The face value of 50p is less than a dollar, and I don't know how they ship them. I'm sure that dealers over here will have them soon. Remember that the queen is "heads" on the coin, so when you use it, try to make sure it always ends up as "tails". That method of tossing ensures that her royal self ends up face down in the mud.
* www.royalmint.com/store/catalogue/themes/london2012.aspx.
As I read over that last sentence, I can see how its tone could indicate to the reader that I might be an anti-royalist. Exactly. Now to the comments.
I have been having some problems with an invasion of spam and junk postings on the site. I get commercials for clothes and hats; for makers of forged documents, including passports; any medication you can think of, especially if it is one that distorts your brain, or increases . . . well, never mind. Some of the junk comes in various eastern European languages; most of the spam comes from Argentina. (It was always thus.) I have had to do a lot of deleting, but not so much any more.
The filters on my email and here on TypePad can be adjusted, and so I have tightened them up. Less mail comes to my "in" box and more to my "junk", and I have been more diligent about labelling things as "junk", to prevent them getting through again. The amount of time I use to do this sorting has diminished, and I have cleared of trash the "comments" section of the blog.
This means that I will react quicker to genuine comments that come in about things that Ed and I write. We want this site to be interactive and we want to attract more readers, so I am going to use the suggestions of TypePad for increasing readership.
All this means is that if you have any other suggestions that will improve the site, please let me know, and keep sending your opinions. Refereeing is a community, after all. One more thing: My agreement with Typepad is that I have three sites I can use. I used one to show the negligence of the City of Sacramento at one of the soccer fields in a park. That suit has now been settled, and so I will take down the photos and use it for other writings that I produce, to which I will refer here when they are posted.
The referee observations will continue, under the aegis of Kenneth Tynan, the late and notable theatre critic:
"Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds."
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