Monthly Archives: March 2024

Tales of Customers . . .

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Silver Sovereign from Isle of Man – recently sold on eBay

We had a display card returned today. It is about the size of a paperback book, about an inch thick, and when full holds 26 £1 coins. It’s moderately heavy to hold (about 4 ounces) and made from heavy duty card. If you had one in your pocket, you would realise.

Yet someone, according to their return request, ordered one from us “by mistake”.

Whether they ordered the wrong one, despite the exhaustive and accurate  description and photographs in our eBay listing, or whether they didn’t mean to order anything, despite the extensive process of button pressing required, isn’t clear. Generally we don’t ask, because you rarely get a sensible answer and because eBay always sides with the idiot. No matter what we do, we are going to end up losing money as part of the process.

Home Guard Bomb Disposal arm badge we sold on eBay

In this case we have lost the postage to the customer and the return postage (the system is designed to make it easy for the customer and difficult for us, so we have to pay the expenses. We have also lost other costs and my time in sorting it out. It’s cost us around £5 or £6 and we have done nothing wrong.

We have another similar item in the post too. This time the customer decided that the folder doesn’t hold the coins firmly enough. They made thousands of them, they are all made by machines and nobody has ever complained before, so this is either a first, or another debatable excuse to cost us money.

One of the best was a parcel we recently sent out. The customer had it delivered to a set of lockers at a shop near him – and didn’t pick it up. It was returned to us. We had to refund the money and lose the postage costs. The customer then got in touch to say he still wanted the stuff and ask if we would send it again . . .

Sold on eBay – souvenir of the American 5th Army entering Naples in 1943. There are several versions, including a British version with “8th Army” on it. Obverse and Reverse.

Then there was the one last week who complained Postage & Packing was too high and left us neutral feedback. It was a high value collectable banknote. The Royal Mail will only pay out if you use Guaranteed Delivery for such items. It was £80 and you don’t want to lose that. He had the choice of whether to pay or not, and he ordered and paid. Then, in the manner of a slimy creeping thing that has white undersides and lives beneath stones, he crept out of hiding and left poor feedback.

Finally, a prince amongst men. We found we had two neutral feedbacks this morning, for slow service. We had posted the items to Singapore on the day they were ordered and they were delivered on the seventh day after that That’s right, delivered halfway round the world in just seven days.  According to eBay the delivery window was 27th March 8ntil 4th April. They were delivered on 27th March and  on 30th March he posted negative feedback saying “Sorry but slow delivery.” It is tempting to be abusive.

In his short eBay career he has given 21 feedback in two months – including 8 neutral and one negative, all for “slow” delivery.

People like him should be banned from eBay. Then neutered to stop them breeding more idiots . . .

Yes, it’s a Yogi Bear badge.

Pictures are all things we sold on eBay, where people were happy with the transaction and left positive feedback. Just saying . . .

 

 

 

Lost in Modern Life

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Daffodils in Nottingham

Number Two Son has just been promoted, he is now a senior analyst in something I don’t understand. He doesn’t understand it either, so I don’t feel too bad. He’s hoping to pick it up once he starts . . .

Number One Son has been doing jobs I don’t understand for years.

This, I suppose, is the way of things in modern life. We didn’t have computers in my day. We barely had calculators. I used to keep track of millions of vaccinations and the necessary monitoring using a ledger and sheets of squared paper which we used to tape together to give us the required length. Today I suppose I would use a spread sheet and be done with it, though I suspect the accuracy might not be as good. Pressing a button has inbuilt hazards, making a mark on paper is a more thoughtful process.

Daffodils

On the poetry front, I have just been informed that my long-listed poems at Butcher’s Dog have failed to progress to the next stage. Unusually, the editor has written a note to explain the selection process. The main stumbling block is, it seems, that poems don’t always fit together to produce a harmonious whole with other poems within an issue. Seems fair enough, and it’s nice to have another excuse for failure. Not that I need another one, because I already have enough and, as previously mentioned, it tends not to worry me too much.

However, it was nice of them to do it, and it’s in distinct contrast to a couple of others that I deal with, who seem to go out of their way to be gruff, or even unpleasant. That of course, is wasted on me. I’m old enough, and gruff enough to take it in my stride. I think this is because I have a balanced outlook on life. Julia thinks it’s because I am ruder than most people who are rude to me.

Daffodils

Where Did All the Energy Go?

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I’m desperately thinking of something witty or interesting to say. So far, it isn’t happening.  I’m mainly thinking I have a lot to do, and that I don’t feel like doing it. This is not witty or interesting, and to my regular readers it isn’t a surprise either, is it?

I started writing this last night, ran out of steam and tried again in the morning. It still isn’t happening. I’m thinking of writing a list and working through some of it. At that point, with some work done and a space to relax, I might have better luck with the blog.

I had better spring into action and do things or I’m going to be looking at a very slim body of written work for the first half of this year. And if I don’t have plenty out there I will have nothing for editors to nominate for the anthology.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

We also need to start thinking about the move in serious terms. We started the year with 11 months before us and are already down to 8, with virtually nothing done. Some things, and this includes moving house, as I dimly recall, are better done with plans and time to spare. Writing poetry the day before the deadline is OK, moving house is not.

Last time I moved I borrowed a lorry from work and invited a group of friends for the weekend. They helped with the heavy lifting and it all went well. Of course, the contents of the house have multiplied and I no longer have friends who can lift stuff. It’s a depressing commentary on my life.

Water Clock. I think it’s Southwold Pier.

A New-style Monday

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I rose at my normal time and took Julia to work this morning. It might be a day off, but after a few weeks the novelty of having a lie-in while she struggles on her two bus trip to work has worn off. It’s a rehearsal for retirement – I can either show some discipline and do stuff, or I can decline into a grumpy watcher of daytime TV. It’s a tricky choice but I have decided to do things while I still can.

After that I will become a grumpy watcher of daytime TV. Grumpy is easy enough, but I may have to pay for some better TV.

Second, I made a drink and set to with a submission for a poetry magazine. It involved editing a few poems that had been returned (it’s strange how you can see improvements once they come back).

I then relaxed with another drink  and read a few blogs.

It’s time for lunch next, using more of the  Sweet Potato and Chilli Soup.

After that, the plan is to do some decluttering and do another set of submissions but experience suggests I will probably watch TV and fall asleep for most of the afternoon. This life/work balance stuff is quite tricky. I’ve been decluttering for weeks now and only succeeded in moving a few things around. One small bag did eventually move as far as the bin, but it’s not an impressive record and Julia is talking about having a go herself, meaning that more of my carefully collected treasures will be at risk. Once she gets going she knows no mercy where my stuff is concerned. Her own stuff, however, seems to spread throughout the house, because you always need wool and fabric bits and half-finished cross stitch kits . . .

That, it seems, is a Well Known Fact.

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One in Three

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Primrose Mencap Garden

To be honest, my latest break was just because I am lazy. Given the choice of sitting watching TV or working on writing, I took the easy way.

The current situation is both good and bad.

One, I have just had a selection of poems turned down. It’s the last but one batch that I sent out in January. No big deal. I often get turned down by traditional poetry magazines. There’s a lot of competition with ordinary poetry and this particular magazine had around a thousand poems submitted. I will have to up my game.

Two. The final set of January submissions are waiting for a decision. They are currently on the Long List. I’ve been there before and failed to make the cut so I am not building any false hopes. They had over 3,000 poems submitted. I am not sure whether the long list is a couple of thousand or a couple of hundred. Doesn’t really matter, as it’s nice to tke the extra step.

Three. Contemporary Haibun 19 is now out. It’s been  a long process from first being told by an editor that they had submitted me for this year’s edition back in the autumn. I didn’t say anything at the time because I’m always afraid that something will go wrong. In fact they didn’t select that piece, they selected another. That’s nice to know, because it means at least two editors think I’m worth nominating. It’s also nice because, as I think I wrote some time last year, after being in the book once, I felt under pressure to produce something good enough for inclusion this year. Now that I’ve put that one to rest I can relax. Even if I never get selected again, I can say I was selected twice and that tastes have changed. There are 113 poems and 32 haiga (pictures with haiku). As several people had multiple entries that puts  me in or about the top 100 writers of haibun and tanka prose (though that is a subjective judgement and a number of  better writers than me may have slipped through the net). It’s good to know I seem to be doing OK.

And with that thought, I’d better get on and submit some poetry.

Apple Blossom Mencap Garden

 

I was lied to as a child . . .

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The 1960s were a time of lies and child exploitation. They told us that by the time we grew up we would only be working three or four days a week and having longer weekends. They also led us to believe that we would have hovercars, voice operated computers, tiny personal communication devices and clean energy. It’s your choice whether you blame the government or Gerry Anderson for the lies (the two were interchangeable for me in the 1960s).

We do, to be fair, have voice operated computers (even if they don’t always recognise a regional accent) and the small personal communication devices (even if they are getting bigger). However, the diminution of my working week has been caused by economics rather than increasing leisure. And my car is firmly on the ground, driving through potholes, and is definitely not powered by clean energy.

But all that pales into insignificance compared to sweet cigarettes. Kids were encouraged to play at smoking (and, as you will note from the photos, Gerry Anderson was involved again). They seem innocent enough but research shows that there is a correlation between the use of sweet cigarettes as a child and smoking as an adult, with users of sweet cigarettes being more likely to smoke real cigarettes as adults.

It’s all very cynical when you look into it, even by the standards of people who peddle sugar and nicotine.

However, it’s now illegal to sell sweet cigarettes in many countries. Progress? Well, let’s just say that as sweet cigarettes were made illegal, a product known as candy sticks hit the market.

The pictures are, of course, the reason I am writing this. They are the slides from packets of 1960s and 70s sweet cigarettes. You don’t see them often, and several of them made over £20. Even the dull ones made £5. It makes you wish you’d saved more of your childhood detritus, doesn’t it.

The Day Part 2

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Sunset, Codnor, Notts

It has not been a wasted day. I have mustered my rejects from the last round of submissions and have improved several of them. I have identified my new list of targets, including one that has resisted me so far.

In non-poetry matters i have cleared a small patch of desk and finished the first draft of an article on medallions. It’s only for the Numismatic Society but it’s a start.

Julia is at the hairdresser so I am now going to make soup and something for the evening meal. This is a twofold win. First it saves her having to cook and second it means the house smells good when she walks in. With any luck I will remember to tell her that her hair looks nice. I have a terrible record of forgetting that.

All that work and it’s only just mid-day.

Sunset and chimney pots

I made soup (sweet potato and chilli) and a mixed vegetable hash (though it could have been stew or more soup). This raises an interesting point bout my cookery. Change a few ingredients and it becomes something else. For a moment I felt guilty at serving general purpose slop over the years, then I realised that Sunday Lunch, roast pork and sausages with roasted veg are all basically the same thing too – just roasted veg with dead animals. Yes, you need Yorkshire pudding for one, apple sauce for another and different flavours of gravy, but they are all pretty much the same too. Having sorted that out in my mind I no longer feel so bad.

It’s not “chicken liver parfait, with pear chutney, pickled cranberry ketchup, chicken skin & toasted sourdough” as offered by one of our local restaurants, but it ill do. Incidentally, if I could be bothered I would definitely book a meal here – even at £45 per person for three courses it looks good compared to ringing Just Eat and ordering second class food to be delivered lukewarm. I suspect that one of my faults over the years has been that I have settled for second best. I like fried chicken, burgers and generic curry but “pork tenderloin with sticky miso glazed cheek, apple & BBQ hispi cabbage” sounds so much nicer. Maybe I should have valued myself more highly.

(And yes, I did remember to mention that Julia’s hair looked nice.)

Sunset, Langley Mill by-pass

Ducks and Stuff

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Mandarin Duck – Arnot Hill Park

I’ve just been tidying up my email box. Deleting 100 emails on top of the hundreds that I do as they come in, makes me realise how many I get and how much I have let things get out of hand. Recently I red how part of you can be contained in another person (the example in my case being that without Julia I would lose all memory of family addresses and dates. It’s a bit like that with emails. Much of my life is contained within the email system and if I lost access to that I would find aspects of my personality disappearing too.

But enough philosophical rambling . . .

I’m just about to start writing poetry again (having been derailed by my recent arthritis outbreak), and I was looking up an email from an editor. I wanted information about the next submission period but was hooked by his comments on rejecting my previous submission. I thought I had passed the point of being annoyed by rejection, but it appears I’m not. I don’t want to give too much information because it’s not fair to discuss editorial comments in public, but he editor in question said that the poem didn’t make sense on a literal basis.

Duck – Arnot Hill Park

If I was aiming for writing that made sense on a literal basis i would write travel guides or text books. I’d actually have a chance of making money if I did that. But I write poetry, which is supposed to be full of imagination, allusion and layers of meaning. I don’t recall ever reading that it had to make sense. It’s hard enough to write as it is, without needing it to make sense too.

That email is stored two spaces below another that complains the haiku in one of the haibun I submitted “isn’t a haiku at all”. When I look back at it, I see his point. It was written in haste as I struggled to make a deadline and I wasn’t as sharp at editing as I should have been. This comment I have no problem with, just in case you were thinking I was being unfair to editors. It is, after all, the job of the writer to write poetry of such stunning beauty that an editor cannot resist it.

And with that in mind, I am off to write a poem about ducks. I like ducks and they are fun to feed. They aren’t quite as multi-faceted as swans, but if you are writing limericks they are easier to rhyme.

Floating Feathers – Arnot Hill Park

Another Day

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I’m off work today because I worked yesterday. It doesn’t, as I said at work, when being asked to swap, make any difference to me. Instead of bouncing round an empty house on Monday while Julia is at work, I will bounce around an empty house on Tuesday.

And that’s how it is. I have surfed the web, wasted my time and considered what to hve for lunch. It is now nearly 3pm and I have still had no lunch or done any proper work.

I haven’t written anything for ages, due to various illnesses and I really should get on with it. Same for decluttering. That never really got going, and then it stopped. In addition to that, I need to get some cooking done to ease Julia’s burden, as she’s been doing everything in the house for a month now.

Part of the problem is that I had a bad night last night. I meant to get a good night’s sleep, but ended up waking four times. I will be glad to get to Urology and get this sorted out again.

Meanwhile, I can remember one of my dreams from last night, something I don’t often do. Julia was on a voyage of Antarctic Exploration, and ended up forming a friendship with George Orwell. He hadn’t been in my mind when I went to sleep, and nor had the Antarctic, so I’m not sure where all this came from. As for the second, I remember having it but I can remember nothing about it.

I’d better do some work now, having enthused myself by blogging.

We have a lot of veg at the moment because we didn’t do a lot of cooking last week and I’m not good at cutting my orders down.

New 10p coins – typical British subjects?

 

Good or Bad or simply Human?

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It’s about three weeks since I did any proper cooking. It was very tricky cutting veg, even with my big knife and various ingenious techniques.  I hve confined myself to a few convenience meals and ringing for takeaways. I think I said that even the act of buttering bread or stirring cheese sauce was challenging – that’s how bad it’s been.

Today I am cooking roasted vegetables with belly pork. It’s so simple it’s hardly cooking but the cutting of vegetables makes it easy to compare with three weeks ago. It is so much easier I am cautiously forecasting a return to normality in the next few days. My main qualification for saying that is optimism rather than science, but what is faith without hope? Or charity?

Here’s a diversion for you. It’s always a surprise to think that the Gloster Gladiator what was basically a design from WW1 fought the Luftwaffe in WW2. For those of you who don’t follow links – this comes from Faith, Hope and Charity being the names given to three Gladiators that defended Malta. It was a bit more advanced than the Great War designs, but it really did belong to a different age, fighting with the RAF over France in 1939, in the Battle of Britain, Norway, Malta and the Mediterranean.

One of the pilots using the Gladiator, was Roald Dahl.  I’m tempted to ask a serious question here, but I won’t. I will just mention that it just shows how complicated it can be to sit in judgement of people. Roald Dahl, anti-Semite and author i need of rewriting, as we are now told we must see him, was also Roald Dahl who risked his life many times to bring down the Nazi regime. Two of the earliest RAF casualties of WW2, by the way, were members of the British Union of Fascists.

Life is complex when you try to sort it out into good people and bad people.

“C’est la vie”, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.

I enclose the quote because you never can tell, and because you don’t often get a chance to quote Chuck Berry in a post about anti-Semitism and the BUF.