The lari is the currency of Georgia. It is divided into 100 tetri; the name lari is an old Georgian word denoting a hoard, while tetri is an old Georgian monetary term used in ancient Colchis from the 6th century BC. Earlier Georgian currencies include the maneti and Georgian coupon. Georgia replaced the Russian ruble on 5 April 1993, with the Kuponi at par; this currency had no subdivisions and suffered from hyperinflation. Notes were issued in denominations between 1 and 1 million Kuponi, including the somewhat unusual 3, 3000, 30,000 and 150,000 Kuponi. On 2 October 1995, the government of Eduard Shevardnadze replaced the provisional coupon currency with the Lari, at a rate of one million to one, it has remained stable since then. On 8 July 2014, Giorgi Kadagidze, Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, introduced the winning proposal for the sign of the national currency to the public and its author; the Georgian lari had its own sign. The NBG announced the Lari sign competition in December 2013.

The temporary commission consisted of representatives of NBG, the Budget and Finance Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, the State Council of Heraldry, the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia and the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia. In choosing the winning sign, the commission gave priority to the samples based on the Georgian Mkhedruli character and made a point of the following criteria: conception, accordance with Georgian alphabet, existence of elements marking the currency, ease of construction, observance of requests and recommendations determined by competition rules; the Lari sign is based on an arched letter ლ of the Georgian script. It is common international practice for a currency sign to consist of a letter, crossed by one or two parallel lines. Two parallel lines crossing the letter Lasi are the basic components of the Lari sign; the so-called “leg” of the letter, represented by a horizontal line, is a necessary attribute of the sign, adding monumental stability to the upper dynamic arc.

The form of the letter is transformed in order to simplify its perception and implementation as a Lari sign. The author of the winning sign is Malkhaz Shvelidze. On 18 July 2014, Giorgi Melashvili, executive director of the National Bank of Georgia, sent a request letter to the Unicode Consortium to register the symbol in the Currency Symbols block of the Unicode Standard as ₾ U+20BE GEORGIAN LARI SIGNOn 17 June 2015, the Unicode Consortium released Unicode V8.0, which includes the Lari sign as U+20BE ₾ LARI SIGN ₾ Coins are issued in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 tetri, as well as 1 and 2 lari. Between November 2016 and October 2019 the National Bank of Georgia released five banknotes, comprising a new complete set; the 2016-2019 series lari notes are produced by Polish Security Printing Works. Economy of Georgia Larization Georgian money, National Bank of Georgia Banknotes of Georgia: Georgian Lari Catalog Coins of Georgia at CISCoins.net The banknotes of Georgia

Frederick Ransome was a British inventor and industrialist, creator of Ransome's artificial stone. Frederick was the son of James Ransome, 1782-1849, a member of the Ransomes steel and agricultural equipment-making family of Ipswich. In 1844 Frederick invented an artificial sandstone, using sand and powdered flint in an alkaline solution. By heating it in an enclosed high temperature steam boiler the siliceous particles were bound together and could be moulded or worked. With properties equivalent to natural stone, it found applications as filtering slabs, tombstones, decorative architectural work, emery wheels and grindstones. Ransome founded the Patent Siliceous Stone Company in 1852 in order to produce and sell the stone, with an illustrious group of backers that included Charles Darwin, the Patent Concrete Stone Company in 1865. However, the stone fell out of use, in favour of Portland cement-based concrete, which could be more cast on-site. Ransome moved the manufacture of the artificial stone from Ipswich to Blackwall Lane, Greenwich, in 1866.

The Blackwall Lane works covered about four acres, connected to a jetty on the Thames by a tramway. The company’s decorative "stonework" was used at the Brighton Aquarium, London Docks, the Indian Court, Whitehall, St. Thomas's Hospital, at the University of Calcutta and other buildings in India, they made paving tiles, which were used on the Albert Bridge and inscribed memorial headstones. By far his most economically important invention was the rotary cement kiln. Although his experiments with this were not a commercial success, his designs provided the basis for successful kilns in the USA from 1891, subsequently emulated worldwide. Ransome became an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1848, he was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. His son, Ernest L. Ransome, born in 1844, moved to the United States and became a significant innovator of reinforced concrete in his own right; the Mechanic's Magazine, p126 Ransome's Patent Artificial Stone at Google books Charles Darwin's correspondence #4780 6 Mar 1865 Ransome requests a postponement of payment on a note for £100

The Greatorex by-election, 2007 was a by-election held on 28 July 2007 for the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly electorate of Greatorex in Alice Springs. The by-election was triggered when Dr Richard Lim, the Country Liberal Party member for Greatorex, resigned from politics on 9 July 2007. Lim had held the seat since 1994, had served as Deputy Opposition Leader under former CLP leader Denis Burke. Greatorex is considered a safe seat for the CLP, Lim, a popular local member, had managed to retain the seat at the 2005 election despite both a huge territory-wide loss which saw Burke lose his seat and the presence of a Labor star candidate in high-profile Alice Springs mayor Fran Kilgariff. Lim stated that he was resigning in order to care for his ailing wife and parents, was considering returning to his medical practice, he apologised for retiring mid-term, an act he had criticised former Attorney-General Peter Toyne for doing in 2006. The by-election saw CLP candidate Matt Conlan elected on primary votes alone, polling 52% of the vote, a small increase on the 2005 election.

Independent candidate Paul Herrick finished second with 20%, just ahead of Labor candidate Jo Nixon on 16%. Greens candidate Jane Clark finished fourth with 9% of the vote. There were 4564 people enrolled within the electorate at the close of the rolls for the by-election on 13 July; the Country Liberal Party preselected local "shock jock" radio presenter Matt Conlan as their candidate unopposed, with the support of party leader Jodeen Carney. A number of potential CLP candidates, including former MLA John Elferink, former candidate Michael Jones, who nearly won the adjacent seat of Braitling in 2005, Alice Springs deputy mayor David Koch had all ruled out nominating; the Labor Party preselected Jo Nixon, an audiologist and the organiser of the annual Alice Springs Beanie Festival as their candidate. The 2005 candidate, Fran Kilgariff, was not interested in standing again. Alice Springs' deputy chief fire officer, Paul Herrick, contested the by-election as an independent, he was endorsed by Loraine Braham, the independent MLA for the adjacent seat of Braitling.

His candidacy was thought to pose the biggest potential threat to the CLP in the traditionally safe seat, raised some speculation that the CLP could have lost party status had he won. Former Alice Springs alderman Jane Clark contested the by-election for the Greens, she had expressed interest in the Labor nomination, but had been unsuccessful, had been expected as a independent candidate after resigning from the council on 12 July. However, she made a surprise announcement on the last day of nominations, 16 July, that she would instead run as a candidate of the Greens, who had not been expected to contest the by-election; the by-election campaign centred on a number of issues, including housing and order and the environment. Independent candidate Herrick promised to push for more affordable housing in town, arguing for unoccupied public housing to be sold off to provide cheap housing options, calling for the creation of a satellite city for Alice Springs at Owen Springs, similar to Palmerston, near Darwin.

The CLP touched on housing issues, promising to reform the territory's HomeNorth scheme if elected in an effort to ease housing pressures. The CLP focused on law and order issues during the campaign, criticising crime rates and expressing support for the federal government's intervention in the region, including the ban on public consumption of alcohol in the town. Conlan promised to support the construction of a detox facility in the town to further combat the effects of alcohol if elected. Labor focused its campaign on law and order issues, with Nixon's primary promise being the construction of a remote "boot camp" for young offenders in Central Australia, which subsequently received support from the territory government. Herrick touched on the issue, criticising the lack of positive activities available for youth in Alice Springs. Environmental issues were raised a number of times throughout the campaign, with both the Labor and Green candidates raising concern about the prospect of the federal government building a nuclear waste dump in the region.

The CLP campaign received an early blow when high-profile former party treasurer and Alice Springs party president Andrew Maloney publicly endorsed Labor candidate Jo Nixon, risking expulsion from the CLP. He stated that he thought Labor would be in government in the territory for the next "six to ten years", that he felt the electorate would be better off with a government member in the circumstances; the CLP, Labor and the Greens directed their second preferences to Herrick. Herrick chose to direct no preferences