Smash, Bang Wallop, what a parcel

A few weeks ago I sold a 1930's glass lampshade on eBay. The auction ended, the cheque arrived and I packed the shade up and took it down to the Post Office.

At the counter the clerk sensibly advised me to pay the extra 75p to insure the item.

On its arrival a very upset buyer informs me that the shade has turned up in pieces. I refunded the cheque straight away althought it later turned out he had cancelled the cheque and not told me. My cheque hasn't been presented so I'm happy.

Anyway, I decided to claim on the insurance. I sent off details and copies of receipts to the Post Office claims department.

Today I get a letter:
"We do all that we reasonably can to ensure the safety of all mail and we are always concerned when incidents like this occur. Unfortunately, the pressures of mechanical handling, the weight of other mail and the loading of mail on to vans, trains and aeroplanes can occasionally cause items to be damaged"

Fair enough, that's why I packed it well and paid for the insurance.

"Royal Mail Standard Parcel service prohibits some items to be sent using this service. Unfortunately, glass is prohibited and we can compensate for the loss but not for any damage that may have been done."

Translating from the poor English, what this means is that I can take my parcel to the counter, be offered insurance, pay for the insurance and then when I need to make a claim be told it's my own fault and I shouldn't have sent the item.

They can sell me insurance but when I want to claim, tell me I shouldn't have used the service.

Great chaps. Thanks

I think I can see the bottom of the ladder...

Gordon Brown is going to offer help to couples trying to get on the houseing ladder. How nice of him.

Perhaps he doesn't want to see the big picture. Some of us can't get on the housing ladder even though we earn above average salaries and sit on reasonable deposits.

Perhaps if he encouraged saving and made sure people felt that any pension they saved for would still be there when they needed then they wouldn't put every penny into buying a house, something that has pushed the prices up beyond belief.

Perhaps we could also discourage the owning of second homes. Transfer much of the property currently owned on a "buy to let" basis back into private hands. Nothing drastic, just an increase in council tax on second homes is all that is required.

Of course he can't do this. Just like the 1980's people love to bore each other with details of the value of thier house. Building Societies and Banks stretch the amounts they are willing to loan assuming the boom will go on forever. The Government tells us that house prices are high but interest rates are low so people can service the dept. Low interest rates and high house prices mean you pay the same amount but it's going to pay off the capital and not on interest. If we were paying interest instead than saver (such pensioners) would be getting decent returns on thier investments.

People don't want house prices to go down. "Negative equity" looms. Of course it mainly hits those who have bought as investments. Prices are cyclical and anyone looking to live in a house will cover thier costs in the end, maybe making a little money. However it's not those people the government (any government) cares about.

They don't buy nice lunches for MPs in the city do they ? And when did a normal house buyer offer an ex-MP a lucrative directorship ?

George - Don't do that.

George Galloway was shown on TV yesterday saying "I and all those who opposed the war...". The implication is that everyone who opposed the war against Iraq supports George G.

No chance. You see George is a truly preposterous person. While many of us didn't think that illegally invading a country was a good idea (Note "illegally" Tony, you are a criminal, shall we buy you a hoddie ?) we didn't support Sadam either. He is a truly evil man who mercilessly killed his people for pleasure. George thinks that we all wanted to climb up Mr H’s arse as he did.

I suspect even Sadam realised how stupid George is. I'm willing to bet he even laughed about the idiot Englishman behind his back.

The Member for Baghdad East is no more representative of those who opposed the war than "Celebrity Love Island" is of quality television. That he tries to appropriate the cause generates almost as much disgust as the man he worships.

George - Don't do that.

George Galloway was shown on TV yesterday saying "I and all those who opposed the war...". The implication is that everyone who opposed the war against Iraq supports George G.

No chance. You see George is a truly preposterous person. While many of us didn't think that illegally invading a country was a good idea (Note "illegally" Tony, you are a criminal, shall we buy you a hoddie ?) we didn't support Sadam either. He is a truly evil man who mercilessly killed his people for pleasure. George thinks that we all wanted to climb up Mr H’s arse as he did.

I suspect even Sadam realised how stupid George is. I'm willing to bet he even laughed about the idiot Englishman behind his back.

The Member for Baghdad East is no more representative of those who opposed the war than "Celebrity Love Island" is of quality television. That he tries to appropriate the cause generates almost as much disgust as the man he worships.

Who wants time off anyway ?

Who are all these people moaning about Europes attempts to limit the time we spend at work ? Wasn't the promise of the future that we would live lives of leisure with the number of hours of toil reduced year on year.

Not anymore. The moment you mention fixing a limit, the letters pages of papers and web comment boards are full of people saying they want to work more and more. They don't want a day off, or even an hour. N, they enjoy their job and want to be there 24 hours a day.

No one is forced to sign an opt out are they ? Of course they are.

If you love your job, spend all day every day there. But don't look down on the supermarket cashier who would like to see his or her family, who wants something outside the daily grind. Never forget that some has to do the dull jobs and they matter far more than those high-paid stars who think that non-work time is wasted time.

Lets face it, are they working because they want to, or because not being at work is too terrible to contemplate ? Are they scared to have to be themselves ?

Leave my anorak alone

It's not often that an article in a paper annoys me a lot. But congratulations to Margaret Clayton in the Sunday Post today who with her rancid "I don't care about the last steam train out of Mallaig" has got to me.

The pointless piece rambles on about men and thier hobbies. Apparently women don't get obsessed about things. She doesn't approve of her husbands interest in railways, a friends enjoyment of westerns, fishing, cleaning the alloy wheels of a car properly or indeed anything else.

So what are we to do ?

The world is full of labour saving gadgets that free up our time. Are we all supposed to spend all day at work ? If we have a moment of pleasure is this a bad thing. When did taking more than a cursory interest in something become a bad thing ?

Lets face it, if you want to return to a subsitance based lifestile where you only do things neccesary to survive and nothing else, the oppourtunity is there. Plenty of people who do have this life would prefer to have some free time. Mind you one advantage is that you would only read the essential bits of the paper and the clumnists could all be fired.

You may wonder if there is anything positive coming out of this - nope. Ms Clayton doesn't have any suggestions so I suspect she favours a night in front of the soaps. After all we don't want people taking part in something when they can just be told what to do do we ?

I love to vote

OK, so I've just voted. It's an old fashioned experience and I love it.

I love the walk to the polling station. I love seeing people who never walk around thier local area looking confused at being out on foot. I love all the paper, the polling card the voting slips, the procedures very carefully caried out involving metal presses that put holes in the slips.

The little booth complete with its stubby pencil (are they ever new ?) tied to a bit of string is great. It brings it home to you that you are doing something different. Something special.

Suddenly you are faced with the decision. You have to make democracy work. All alone in a three sided wooden box the choice stares at you. You just put a cross in a box and the world could change.

The only sad part - we don't have metal ballot boxes any more. Our looks like a stiff cloth bag. I'm sure it is easier to use and probably more resiliant to bashes in transit. It might even fold up for storage but a little of the magic is lost. I prefer a metal box, preferably one that has been in use since the war.

Never mind. They can't take the magic of the process away from me. I will never agree to electronic voting. This stuff matters and if you want to take part you need to get your bum down to the local school, hall or church that for a short period of time is the centre of the democratic world. This isn't chosing a soap powder. It's more exciting than that. It deseves a process and needs a tradition.

Mystic Phil

My predictions for the election:

Labour Win - Majority 40-50 seats.

Tories do better than polls suggest (people always lie and are embarrassed about voting Tory)

Lib Dems get lots more votes but very few extra seats if any.

Tony claims that the public have backed him on Iraq.

Hitchikers Ranting Guide to the Film

Basically, it's rubbish.

OK, the production values are excellent. It's well shot and the effects are good.

But. Why did thay have to re-write the story so much ? In the first few minutes Ford turns up with a trolley full of beer to distract the workmen instead of the entertaining exchange in the radio series & book. I'm sitting in the cinema wanting to shout, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!".

The main problem is the love story. I appreciate that many people need a love story or they can't understand the film. They also need a hero who gets the girl. Arthur Dent is not that hero. He spends the story largely confused. He meets Trillian very briefly at a party and they barely talk. He doesn't go charging around rescuing anyone from Vogon planets. He simply isn't a hero.

Another thing is Zaphod. Why can't they do as good a job with him as the BBC did in the 1980's ? The second head in the neck ? No ! Put it beside the first one. That is funny.

And the producers thought they were so clever getting the TV Marvin for the scene in the Vogon Office. So pleased that they shoved him into every shot. Not for them the subtlety of the character appearing in the background.

The book itself - why is "Don't Panic" on the back cover ? It's supposed to be on the front !

Now if you have seen the film you fall into one of two categories:

• You haven't read the book or listened to the radio series. You spent half time wanting to shout at the screen.
• You haven't read or heard either. You spent the film wondering why the cast were going to Magarethea since it isn't explained.

On the plus side, the Vogons are very good and new Marvin isn't bad either.

However this is a very bad film. In the list of bad films it ranks just above "Herbie goes bananas" which is the very worst film ever made, but only just. I blame the Americans. Everything had to be altered for them. I think this alone means the whole race should be declared illegal and removed from the planet.

Jump !

Why is everyone so worried about Oxford Students jumping off bridges into the river ?

These are, we are told, the brightest and best of our countries youth. They will be leading big business and government in the future.

If they can't work out that jumping from a bridge into 3 feet of water is going to hurt and probably seriously injure them then they deserve everything they get. Besides, in three years time they will all be finishing degrees, getting jobs in the city with huge salaries and voting Tory to try and avoid paying taxes for the wages of the people who scrape them off the riverbed.

Leave them there I say.