First I had an email from a friend, passing on the jdbmgr.exe virus hoax. Then there was yet another Nigerian Business offer sitting in my intray. The other was an hour later by a coworker, who received the Friend of a Friend warning of the Wallet and the Terrorist and the plot to blow up the local shopping centre. The minutest piece of cynicism or the tiniest check on the net would have shown this one has been circulating since November 2001, but no, deeply worried, it is forwarded on to all of us.

Or, if you’ve already received another version of this email: where the Arab drops his wallet in a cab/pub/pole-dancing club; where he gives the date as 28/30 September or 1/5/10 October; or where MI5 turn up at your door with a really big book of wanted terrorists, you might want to reflect on the net hoax phenomenon which can reduce otherwise rational people to headless chickens.

Even after we point out the previous hoaxes, she’s still not convinced, just keeps reiterating that “it is better to be safe than sorry.” Sigh Some people just don’t seem to get it.

To top it all off, being the start of the school holidays, the bike paths are a mass of broken glass. It looks like the schoolies must have spent most of the weekend getting pissed and smashing bottles. No flat tyres so far…

Answers

The answers to all my questions — from the Royal Australian Mint’s website — http://www.ramint.gov.au/:

• When was the $1 coin first released?: 1984
• When was the $2 coin first released?: 1988
• When were 1c & 2c coins taken out of circulation?: The last one cent coins were dated 1990 and the last two cent coins were dated 1989. They were progressively removed from circulation starting in 1992.