Another little step towards a cashless society.

[Arzosah]

Even other precious metals such as platinum find their way into catalictic converters and following on from that I have read of someone exploring the possibility of extracting it from road dust.

Ooh yes ... and isn't there a mineral used in solar panels that's only found in one of the southern African countries? The road dust thing is very interesting.

Going off topic , I'm not quite sure about aliens and pyramids and the like but I do sometimes think about the paradoxes in Star Trek for instance . They have replicators that can create anything from food to engine parts and such a thing would make gold , or any physical form of money obsolete, energy would be the only thing of any value , yet there are races such as the Ferengi who still lust after their gold pressed Latinum .

Star Trek! You're my new hero I bet the Trek scientists would find a valid explanation, like why the Terminator can't make a gun, no moving parts.

Oh and that term "foreigner " is used around here too.

Excellent news that other people know it, nobody's heard of it in my bit of the south ...

[itsybitsy]

It's called a guvvie in my neck of the woods

[Brambles]

In the part of the south where I'm from, that's known as a Homer.

[grenfell]

I seem to recall , but stand to be corrected if I'm wrong , that working in the Lake District they used the term homer too.