I hardlly ever blog on financial matters, but today I was struck by a strange coincidence. It all began a few weeks ago, when I was in my local bank and the cashier was warning people to look out for some very good forgeries of £20 notes. Then someone else chimed in and said that his friend in a nearby town had been offered £20 notes for £12.....

The thing is, everywhere I go I hear this same story. Today I heard these forgeries aren't even confined to Wales, but are plentiful up in Nottingham and even further north.

I wonder then, if it's any coincidence that the UK is in the currently grip of a financial crisis at the same time as the country appears awash with counterfeit £20 notes?

Introducing large scale forgeries to destabilise the economy is nothing new - Nazi Germany did pretty much the same thing in World War II.

It's just a thought.... but an interesting one....

Here are a few interesting thoughts for you, this misty moisty morning in Blogland.....

The last woman tried for witchcraft in the UK was Helen Duncan. The trial took place in 1944 under section 4 of the Witchcraft Act of 1735. She was found guilty and sent to prison. Interestingly, one of her supporters was Winston Churchill!

One of the last times the fairies were involved in a murder trial was in Ireland (then part of the UK) in 1895, Bridget Cleary was murdered and burned because her husband and neighbours believed she wasn't the real Bridget but had been changed by the fairies. Although tried for murder, her husband was found guilty of manslaughter instead.

In Ireland 1968, the people of Ballymagroartyscotch were outraged when road builders threatened to cut down a fairy tree. Several contractors refused to destroy it for fear of fairy reprisals. Eventually, the road was diverted.

Also in Ireland, in the 1960s when a fairy mound stood in the way of a planned airport in Ireland the builders refused to demolish it and found a way to bypass it.