Hollywood star put in shade by Andy’s granny

Howcould they do this to us? They bring in a new £1 coin this week, then tell us that the old ones will not be legal tender after October. There are tins, piggy banks and probably chamber pots in this house overflowing with brass farthings, threepenny bits and the round pounds are at the bottom. It’ll take years to find every poit that Mrs X has hidden from me after emptying my breeks when I have rolled home late of an evening.

After all, I was brought up on tattered green banknotes. I am just getting used to the round pound that came out to replace the note. It is only 34 years since it came out but, here they go again, trying to fix something that ain’t broken.

I don’t care if this latest one is a revolutionary design with 12 sides and marvellous new anticounterfeit measures built in as standard. Do you expect me to believe it was ever an issue? It is only a quid, after all.

Was the Hatton Garden safe deposit robbery in 2015, which netted about £ 200million, about nicking pound coins? Hardly. Ronnie Biggs and his mates in the Great Train Robbery made off with £2.6million cash in 1963.

Would they have been foiled if the new anti-coin-copying technology had come in then? Methinks not. Are there geeks in glasses sitting at home churning out clever fake pound coins each and every day? No way.

Yes way. The Royal Mint have just phoned back to say there are at least 30million fake pound coins in circulation. Never. Yes ever, said the moneymaker. That must be worth about – ooh, letme think. They say 30million of the fake pound coins are out there so that’s worth about 30,000, no maybe 300,000. Oh, £30million. Yes, of course. I knew that. Just seeing how quickly you would work it out. They are, of course, worth very little but that is what most people think they are worth. Someone is churning them out and raking it in.

Look, the Royal Mint have also now sent me another e-mail. “About one in every 40 pound coins in circulation today is a fake.” Surely that is nonsense? It is apparently, er, on sense. So I may have been a bit wronga bout there being no fakery problem. The 12-sided almost-round pound may not be such a bad thing. In fact, I am looking forward to collecting as many of them as I can for the rest of my puff. A quid quo pro.

Another pro I saw at the weekend was Mrs Shirley Erskine. What a star. What do you mean who? She is Dunblane racqueteer Andy Murray’s granny and she turned up on that new chat show with Agnes Brown at the weekend. Did you see her? She was on with busty beach babe Pamela Anderson but Mrs E put her in the shade. Poor Pam did not know what to say. Vocabulary was never her talent.

Shirley met her husband on a tennis court and claims the success of Andy, the world number one, and brother Jamie is down to her. She has told daughter Judy: “If I hadn’t been sent away to boarding school in Bridge of Allan I wouldn’t have met your father, we wouldn’t have had you, you wouldn’t have had the boys, so therefore it’s all down to me.” Heck, the cailleach has a point.

Mrs Egot into the spirit of the spoof show and was dancing in the kitchen with Mrs B, having a wee nip – and confirming it was the real stuff. She was nervous about going onto the show and was praying for power cuts on Saturday night all over Dunblane so people wouldn’t see here but she needn’t have worried. She was the absolute star – not dour at all like perhaps some in her extended family.

Can’t imagine where they get it from. I hope all the other Scottish channels will sign up this unlikely laugh-a-minute granny to host a late-night show. When you see the tired old dinosaurs still doing it, how difficult can it be?

Oh look, more news is coming in from the Royal Mint. It has been a busy time down there stamping out all the new pounds coins. The pressure to make more and more has been relentless. Everyone is exhausted. So much so that it seems many of the workers there are thinking about taking industrial action. You know what that will mean. They will be the only people ever who go on strike because they want to make less money.

I am just getting used to the round pound that came out to replace the note. It is only 34 years since it came out but, here they go again, trying to fix something that ain’t broken