(no subject)

Happy birthday, taelle!

Actually, Rudyard, I think minutes are more forgiving than you claim*

Somehow these claims that OMG people are only protesting part-time (the article itself is fairly reasonable, the opinions therein quoted by certain self-appointed pundits not) seems to me to resonate with that poster and its suggestion that cancer researchers are on the job 24/7 that I posted about last week.

Y O Y do people have to throw everything into a particular pot to demonstrate the seriousness of their commitment?

I wonder if L Mensch assumes that if people don't give huge amounts to charity they might as well not bother or are just faking their concern? (And on the issue of charity, does she also critique the kind of posh philanthropy involving huge pricey events for the glitterati at which one suspects a good deal of moolah expended goes nowhere near the actual deserving cause in question?)

The widow's mite may be minor in itself, but enough people giving mites probably amounts to rather more than whatever the self-promoting Pharisee put in.

In my young day in the Upper Palaeolithic when what people were protesting was The Bomb, nobody considered it particularly remarkable that people marched when they had time to.

And as for the Starbucks coffee, cannot help thinking that were there a freetrade coffee stall serving caffeine to the campers, she would also be pointing and mocking at that?

*[S]ixty seconds' worth of distance run might involve necessary downtime recharging as well as frenetic activity.

Bring back the post-boy, or the well-trained weightbearing carrier pigeon

About 2 weeks ago I ordered a book from The Book Depository and foolishly forgot to check the 'do not post to billing address, use this one instead' box, so when I checked the order I perceived that it was winging its way towards my home address.

Allegedly.

Being a paperback it might just have fitted through the letterbox, or at the very least, one would have expected a 'tried to deliver, you were out' card.

Neither of which has eventuated.

I contacted TBD who say the book was indeed dispatched on the date given, check with the Post Office.

Hollo laffter.

The Royal Mail website gives as phone no for the local sorting office (which, as I am sure I have mentioned heretofore, is right at the opposite end of the postal district and inaccessible by public transport) what turns out to be the general PO phone menu line, which leads one a merry infuriating dance through various options none of which quite fit, and the most likely of which simply produces a recorded message of quite remarkable lack of helpfulness. There does not seem to be any option to speak to an actual person, not even staying on the line after a tinny voice mentions that you've failed to hit any of the options offered.

I find a local business directory type site that provides a number for the sorting office, which is either permanently engaged, or, even more likely, off the hook altogether.

So far, so frustrating.

I also have a side-bet on either the book itself, or the 'you wuz out' card having been delivered to same numbered house in parallel road, since we get a certain percentage of their mail in error, and there have been one or two occasions when I suspect our mail went to theirs, and they were away (massively over due date credit card statement).

Light the lights

Today is Diwali.

That would probably explain the fireworks I heard earlier (I think it's really rather too early for them to be premature Guy Fawkes celebrations).