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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As is usual when I am waiting for a Royal Mail package, the carpet is being worn down to the rubber and my nerves to a frazzle. It's a 48-hour guaranteed delivery (of this month's vapes, the last of which is being smoked as I type) due to arrive yesterday. Obviously I wasn't actually expecting it yesterday but I've had plenty of leisure to get up to speed with Royal Mail's latest wheezes for trying patiences.
1. In order to get onto the Track My Parcel page you now have to pass stringent tests of the 'Which picture has got a train in it?' type. You could be anyone for all they know. These tests can be quite fun except a bit wearying when there are twelve pictures and eleven of them have got trains in them. Anyway I passed that with elan (I'm a train buff) and was onto the next one. This only had two pictures of trains so was quickly achieved. Except I was meant to be identifying motorbikes which I should have guessed, there being nine of them. Start over, Rover!
2. I got there in the end though and they had my package just as they did yesterday. So what are the prospects for today? Ah, here's another innovation they have introduced
We normally expect to deliver to your address by 3:00pm
Your Item was received by Notting Hill DO on 07-07-2022
and is now due for delivery today. |
Just as it did yesterday. So I am none the wiser. And knowing Royal Mail they will be telling me this for a few days yet. It's lucky I've got plenty of carpet to smoke.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It is now 11.30 pm on the 8th of July. Though not yet in Royal Mail land
Thursday 07 July 2022 06:25
Due to be delivered today by
Notting Hill DO |
But at least they know who I am. No trains, no motorbikes. Perhaps bots do not need to access yesterday's news. No, my real problem is if I slip out to get vape refills from the shops, the watching postie will seize his chance and put the dreaded card through my letterbox.
We called today but you were out
and we're not going to tell you what to do next
'cos we're the Royal Mail.
In fact we're not even going to say who you are
so the rest of your multiple-occupied building
can wonder if it's them. We like to spread the load. |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Another day older and deeper in (nicotine) debt. My big problem now is that I let slip during one of the thirty-seven trillion other times I have 'interfaced' with Royal Mail I that I have to go out once a week to do my Saturday shop. That'll be on my docket. But they don't know exactly when.
Normally I would just do what most people do in this situation, dress up as someone else, slip out and slip back again. But it's so hot they'll know anyone in, say, an astrakhan fur coat will be me. Unless I can get one of the people upstairs to help me with a double bluff.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It is Saturday morning and all's quiet. Royal Mail has special arrangements for Saturdays so I'd better check. Unfortunately it is not yet Saturday at the Notting Hill Delivery Office. It is not yet Friday.
Thursday 07 July 2022 06:25
Due to be delivered today by
Notting Hill DO |
But they know it's Saturday at the House of Harper and are waiting to pounce when I go off to shop. What they hadn't counted on is my resourcefulness. I've been digging through my old vapes and found some discarded because they made me violently ill. I can smoke them and sit the Post Office out. Food supplies may prove to be a problem later but I will cross that bridge when it comes.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Developments. Some good, some bad. I rang the number provided and -- this is the good news -- someone answered. That has not happened before, not within minutes anyway. The bad news: "Well, Mr Harper, I can only see what you can see and there does seem to be an inexcusable hold-up at the Notting Hill end but I have no way of knowing what it is. You have been very poorly treated so what I'm going to do for you is send Notting Hill an official email enquiring what's going on. The regulations say they must reply within three working days... so that is ... er ... Wednesday. We have to let you know within seven working days."
I did not have the heart to ask whether the seven days start now or from Wednesday but I do have to make a strategic decision. Officially I am still due to receive the package by 3 pm today so I dare not leave home before then. But the vape man knocks off about that time. But in any case, do I buy his (ruinously expensive) wares assuming my cheapo ones will arrive today, tomorrow, Monday, never?
Because one thing you might not know is that whenever officialdom has got involved one of two things always happen
1. Everyone covers their back by hurling my package into the back of beyond and claiming total ignorance of it or
2. Everyone pulls out all the stops and I get a special delivery, just my package in its own Royal Mail van, brought to me at any time night or day, Sundays included.
I have another hour to make my move.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I took a chance and put Royal Mail parcel for Harper
Ring any bell or put next to the bins
You cunt |
on the door, dashed out to buy a week's supply of vapes and emergency rations, dashed back, and found the note still pinned to the door. This is by no means foolproof as it is easily met with the counterploy
You were out when we called
48-hour signed-for packages require a signature
We have returned yours to sender |
Though not on this occasion. MH 1 RM 0.
I checked to see if the stiff memo from Head Office had had any effect but as far as Notting Hill is concerned my vapes are still going to be delivered by 3 pm Thursday. But here's the thing. I've got enough vapes and supplies to last until next Thursday when, like the stopped watch, all will be set fair once again in Royal Mail land. Let them try and get out of that one.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It is a new week for the world but still last week for Notting Hill Distribution Office. I learned this after doing The Monday Morning Bot Challenge. Turned out to be the Monday Morning Boat Challenge and I paused to decide whether to select on the basis that some of the pictures were of ships, not boats. A fact that would be known to most bots, I would imagine. I decided on the evidence so far that Royal Mail probably wouldn't know this and I was right! I feel it's an omen.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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1130 am It arrived!
Mick: How come it took a week?
Royal Mail Miss: We've been having holiday problems.
One does sympathise. July does kinda creep up on you.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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My new policy of moving into populist subjects on medium.com is having an alarming effect on my algorithm. He (or she, I don't know much about medium's hiring policies) selected the top five stories they thought would appeal to my known proclivities
Took A Naked Pic Of Me At 63
I was in Playboy at 31 years old. So I decided to compare
My Neighbors Breasts Are So Big — How Big Are They?
We need better names for boobs
How to Destroy the Left on Abortion
Answering the problem of abortion
Mind-Relaxing Facts That Sound Completely Fake But Are Actually True
This piece will help you relax your thoughts.
10 Slang Names For Breasts
From booby prize to titillating
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I wasn't much of a breast man when I was alive.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I got my first highlight on medium.com! They're so rare I didn't even know they existed. Anyway, since it's the first time I've had unsolicited praise since 2015 I thought I'd pass it on. Somebody had posted up about the Shroud of Turin being discovered to be real after all (don't ask, thermoluminescent something or other) and everyone was either going gooey-eyed or coming over all censorious. I was obliged to occupy the middle ground
So, it's some bloke what got crucified two thousand years ago. Where's the paternity test, that's what I want to know. He could be the son of anyone who created a universe. |
Though reading it back now I wouldn't put in my highlights reel.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You know summer's arrived when someone rings up to see if you're all right for Christmas.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I find I have neither potatoes nor onions. This is the first time I have been in this position for... certainly seven years (I keep all shopping receipts for this long, it being the statutory limit for bringing civil actions in England and Wales).
Thursday night is sausage and mash night so it is to be blue sky cooking for me. The weather suggests a salad but I have found (and I dutifully pass on) that if you make a sandwich with cheese, tomato, cucumber and lettuce you have essentially reproduced a salad -- and all the better for it -- but because it is a sandwich it is for an afternoon snackeral not for a formal, in front of Channel 4 News, sit down meal-for-one.
But there my imaginative powers have given out. Let us hope hunger is the best medicine.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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An alarm going off in the middle of the night reminds me that alarms no longer go off in the middle of the night. How was that minor curse of life solved? It wasn't. It just stopped. There's a lesson there but I'm damned if I can see what it is.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It may have been something because a wah-wahing police car arrived a few minutes later. Which reminded me, police cars no longer wah-wah. And for that matter no emergency vehicles do. It used to be twice-nightly round here. It is very strange. I like it of course but I don't like it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Weekend Oneupmanship
Dude: Don't know if you're still on a forgeries jag, but I'm currently reading quite an interesting book on the Habsburgs ...specifically just read about their 13th/14th century forgeries made to big themselves up
Mick: I am always trying to get more on the early Habsburgs. They're not featured much in English works so send me the title. As it happens my entire (adult) interest in history stems from The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918 by AJP Taylor. I used it to telling effect when explaining to Caroline why Welsh-speaking social workers were demanding social workers in Wales must be fluent in Welsh. Highly recommended even though neither of us (I would think) has much time for AJP otherwise.
Dude: Met him a few times…the smallest non dwarf I’ve ever seen, radiating energy and enthusiasm.
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