“I HATE the pound coin. Let’s change it to a dodecagonal prism at once,” said no-one ever...

Apart from one person paid for being “busy” it would appear, because in March the old pound coin that was first used to buy Karma Chameleon and Rubiks Cubes is being replaced.

Apparently it’s to make counterfeiting more difficult.

Counterfeiting has always happened with money, paintings, designer clothing.

Already some counterfeiter is making a mould for one of these ready to run the first batch next month to be spent in dark, busy pubs where no-one will notice a counterfeit as they are unfamiliar.

So after October, £1 coins can only be taken to banks and Post Offices, then a short while later they will only be used to put in busker’s hats while holidaying abroad.

I could be wrong, but won’t this cost us all a fortune?

Every vending machine, shopping trolley, parking meter, fruit machine will need altering - and geometrically a little cylinder fits so much easier into these machines.

It’s like changing tins of beans and us all needing different tin openers.

Yet our care system in this country today means so many older people are living like Robinson Crusoe without a Man Friday or message in a bottle in sight.

What next? Making fivers that don’t fold because they’re made of moulded melted crisp bags?

Ian Donaghy, Heslington Road, York