• I found a strange coin in my change while on holiday this summer. It’s been on my windowsill ever since. Today I looked at it again and I just can’t work it out.

    It looks like a normal, UK sterling ten pence piece except that one side is silver and the other side is copper!

    A ten pence piece should be silver on both sides. Looking more closely, the stamp on the copper side is off centre although it tallies up with the vertical plane of the reverse side, which is where counterfeiters often get it wrong. The copper almost looks inset into the silver.

    But why would anyone bother counterfeiting and ten pence piece? It’s just not worth it.

    I have three suggestions:

    1. Someone has done this because it’s technically possible and it’s got into circulation by mistake.

    2. It’s a trick coin and there’s a magician still looking for it somewhere!

    3. There’s been some chemical reaction with an adjacent copper coin and the copper will rub off if I polish it. (I am hesitant to do this as it would spoil it.)

    Have you any ideas? make a comment below.

  • This is a drawing lesson for you if you want to draw ivy on your Christmas cards or decorations.

  • Do you know about TED.com? If not, then you are in for a treat. TED is packed with videos of lectures given by some of the greatest thinkers, academics, designers and people who are generally doing stuff in this world.

    If you are of the old school, that thinks that you can only learn from books or worksheets and that computers can never take the place of teachers, watch the video below Sugata Mitra: Child Driven Education.

    Sugata Mitra has been giving children computers in the most unlikely places and watching the most unlikely way that children use them.

    I love Sugata’s idea of – Teach like a grandmother – stand back and make encouraging noises!

    And the comment by Arthur C. Clarke’s , who also appears in the film – Where there is interest, there is education.” I think I shall make this my motto!