CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[N R Scott]

I've just received a message saying my copy has been dispatched. It's coming tomorrow (6th Aug). Well today technically given it's after midnight.

[Mick Harper]

Why are people so pedantic? By the way, when I said Aa to Ab I didn't mean 'inclusive'. Though obviously it does include all the Aa's.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

Great Coincidences of Our Time (or are they?)

'Rawalpindi' appears in both of my last two books. Both refer to notable British military disasters with hapless bravery connotations but are two quite different events, separated by a hundred years and taking place on opposite sides of the world.

Come together!
Right now! Over me.

[Grant]

I have the book! I must say it looks an impressive tome, proper hardback and all.

[Mick Harper]

For fuck's sake, Grant, haven't you finished it yet?

[Mick Harper]

Now that sales have ceased -- it has reached 440,000th best selling book in a steady parabola that started from 23,000 a week ago -- the Amazon algorithm has decided it's safe to jettison the anchors

[Mick Harper]

But here's a strange Amazonian experience. I got a phone call telling me if I wanted to end (or it may have been renew) my membership of Prime I should do such and such. I put the phone down as you do but I 'instituted enquiries' as we say in the Met and discovered I was indeed a member of Prime. Which nonplussed me as I wasn't. I had joined Prime many years ago in order to watch a Philip K Dick series otherwise unavailable but that was via a free thirty day offer and which, after a quick check with the CRO, I had duly cancelled in good time.

Anyway, since this is a pastiche of Police Five with Shaw Taylor, long story short, it turned out that some time ago I had been asked, in all innocence, whether I wanted something delivered via Prime and I had dutifully pressed the 'no thanks' button but when I was told sometime later in the process that it was being delivered via Prime I had decided, whoever's error it was, it was too much of a pfaff to correct it.

Big mistake. I was going to be paying £79.95 a year for the rest of my life without knowing it and without therefore availing myself of any of the Prime benefits. Only now I'm not because, thanks to that nuisance phone call, I discovered not only is there a little button that says "I want to end my Prime membership" but Prime replied, "We are returning £46.83 to your bank account because that is the unused portion of your annual membership fee". Which was pretty decent of them, I thought.

[Mick Harper]

Saturday is leaving-the-flat day and leaving the flat day means keeping a weather eye on the weather. Only I can't on account of living in a basement in a concrete jungle. For years I have relied on people carrying umbrellas or not but this system is flawed because round here nobody goes out when it's raining. We're not country people.

So I've invested in a real-time precipitation indicator which is on a strip along the bottom of my computer. I was watching it like a hawk when suddenly the rain drop thingies disappeared. I was just rising when lo! they re-appeared. You've got to admit, that's impressive. Unless it sensed I was rising. That would be even more impressive though not in a good way.

[Mick Harper]

They've gone. And so am I... I promise you the raindrops re-appeared as I was typing this.

[Mick Harper]

Wow, this is spooky. They went away but re-appeared as I was thinking, "Good, at last." So we're talking interception of brain wave patterns.

[Mick Harper]

No, sorry, I was looking at the One Drive Up to Date icon which is rather similar. This might have been what was happening all the time.

[Mick Harper]

Amazon agree with me that maybe sales have been on the slow side lately so they've slashed the price to drum up some business

[Chad]

[Chad]

What the....



....fuck ?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/M.-J.-Harper/e/B09798C8VM?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000