In other news... it's Friday. And how many Fridays pass without a Chinese farmer discovering an 8-kilo gold nugget just lying on the ground? Not this one, that's for sure!

In this story from the Guardian, which quotes China's official Xinhua news agency and is deeply misleading about the natural availability of massive nuggets [insert own industry joke here], a herdsman in China’s far west found the nugget—estimated to be worth at least $250,000—“practically lying on bare ground”.

Berek Sawut, for such is his name, is a lucky man, but apparently not given to flights of poeti fancy. The report describes the nugget as “random-shaped.” 

In a pleasing flight of synchronicity, he found it in Altay prefecture—and "Altay" means "gold" in Mongolian. It's almost as if they knew.

It all turns a little dark at the end, though, with this: "But the report did not say whether the herder would be able to keep his new-found riches." Well, we at CSR21, collectively worth significantly less than 23cm of random-shaped gold, strongly and sincerely hope that he can. 

Good weekends to all.

ENDS