What should you do if you find a 20p coin without a date on it?

It’s definitely worth checking your pocket to see if you find that coin that’s the equivalent of the ‘golden ticket’.

It seems a local lad has picked up one of the few 20 pence pieces that are suddenly fetching in hundreds of pounds.

The Royal Mint mix up has seen a batch of twenty pence coins produced without a date. A new design last year saw the date move to the “heads” side of the coin, but some coins were produced with the newly designed back and the old front – in other words, two sides with no date.

What should you do if you find one?

Most seem to have found their way onto ebay, but they are now considered a collectors’ item so who knows if they will increase in value in years to come?

If you just want to cash in now however, you can just register your details with The London Mint Office before sending in the coin and claiming your reward.

Check out their website for more details: www.undated20p.com

Whilst I’m getting fed up of reading all about the continual economic decline, I always find it more interesting when they tailor it to specific areas – that is, houses for sale in Oxford

Now, there’s no doubt that Oxfordshire will always have a reputation for high house prices, but it still surprised me to read in the Oxford Mail that Oxford is the fifth least affordably place in England to buy a home. And I’m one of these people that are always browsing the windows of estate agents in Oxford to see what local houses and flats are going for.

The average house price in Oxford is a staggering £370,852, which is 12.7 times the average income (‘normally’, the average house costs 7.1 times average earnings in England).

In the current crunch, mortgage lenders will provide 2.8 times average earnings, so that leaves the majority of us with what looks like an impossible feat if we want to buy. Or perhaps we should be lowering our sights and looking at simply buying a room instead.

Anyway, back to the point. Who beats us at the top of the charts? Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, South Buckinghamshire and St Edmundsbury. Wonder how much a room is going for in these places?

Slowly but surely it seems the pub industry is doomed, particularly in the face of the latest battering they are getting with the recession.

Apparently, pubs in Oxfordshire are closing at a rate of one every 25 days, with landlords blaming high taxes, cut-price alcohol in supermarkets and the smoking ban as reasons for the slump.

So how important are pubs in Oxford to you? A survey carried out by ComRes shows that more than eight out of 10 people believe that community spirit and values are under threat in Britain today, and that the local pub and a pint of beer are important symbols of the British way of life. I, for one, would feel a great loss should my local pub disappear.

There are also numerous campaigns against proposals to increase beer tax in the forthcoming Budget (this website here pretty much explains it all), with the usual call-to-action to lobby MPs to oppose the plans. I don’t doubt the seriousness of the issue, but I was very amused by this tax-o-meter, although less so by the figures it produced!

I only saw the Angel of the North close up for the first time the other day. I’ve seen it from afar, but I’m not quite sure what I made of it – I mean, it was more majestic than I had envisaged but I almost expected it to be… bigger?

Nearly eleven years on since it was created, it still remains a mystery to me. No doubt it means lots of things to different people; something that the North can champion, an iconic piece of art that reflects the region’s aspirations, a symbol of greatness?

Even so, you can imagine my intrigue when I hear that we are to get our very own statue here in Oxford. A giant, naked man made of cast-iron, designed by, nonetheless, Anthony Gormley (creator of Angel of the North).

The figure has been commissioned by Exeter College and is set to overlook Broad Street/Turl Street.

I wonder what people will think he symbolises? Will people think someone is “watching over them”, or about to jump off a building? I suspect there is more of a risk that some drunken student, stumbling back into halls after an action-packed night out, may have a shock of their life if they happen to look skywards.

Keep a look out (before he spots you, anyway) as he’s going to be unveiled on Sunday 15^th February. Aside from being clothes-less, he’ll be 7ft tall, so you won’t be able to miss him really.