Wherein the Royal Mint meets the CIA
Nothing James Bond-ish, just a couple of links to pass along, with interesting images.
The Language Hat blog notes a new coin in the UK. The new 50p piece is in honor of the 250th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. It even has the etymology of the term "fifty pence" right on the coin!
This is larger than lifesize but is by far the clearest picture of the coin I can find. Even the image at the Royal Mint's site isn't as easy to read.
(Citation: the picture is from the Flickr page of someone called durhamcat2000.)
Meanwhile, I discovered that the CIA World Factbook website, always an interesting source of information, has a really neat and easy-to-use map page. Pull down for the map of the country or territory or region you're interested in; most of them are there. The CIA maps are one of my favorite parts of working with U.S. government documents.
The Language Hat blog notes a new coin in the UK. The new 50p piece is in honor of the 250th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. It even has the etymology of the term "fifty pence" right on the coin!
This is larger than lifesize but is by far the clearest picture of the coin I can find. Even the image at the Royal Mint's site isn't as easy to read.
(Citation: the picture is from the Flickr page of someone called durhamcat2000.)
Meanwhile, I discovered that the CIA World Factbook website, always an interesting source of information, has a really neat and easy-to-use map page. Pull down for the map of the country or territory or region you're interested in; most of them are there. The CIA maps are one of my favorite parts of working with U.S. government documents.