Danskcolin: Friday April 21st 2023

Colin vs. Amazon, part 397: the Amazon delivery guy makes another attempt today to deliver our shiny-new lawn-mower to the same wrong address, about a mile away from here. This time, however, the nice couple who live at the house are able to catch him before he disappears, and they tell him where Lois and I actually live - i.e. at the address on the package - what madness!!!!

Then the couple ring us to let us know that the guy is "on his way". What lovely people they are!

a typical delivery guy arriving with a package,

not delivering with care, but certainly being respectful of property -

not even opening the gate, so as to keep it clean haha!

For a while, Lois and I keep looking out of the window, expecting the guy to roll up, until it dawns on us that he isn't going to come. He's just going to take the package back to the depot, isn't he. He isn't going to take up his shift time trying to find our house, now, is he! Be reasonable! His time-sheet is what's important here haha!

I look on the Amazon website and I see that the delivery is now marked as "on hold". If I'm being optimistic, I would say that he has taken the package back to the depot, and they will now reassign it to a different delivery guy, the one that maybe serves our area? So maybe they'll deliver it to us tomorrow or Sunday? But we'll see!

Meanwhile the grass in our backyard keeps growing.

meanwhile, the grass in our backyard keeps growing while I sit and watch it

- I can almost feel it gaining all those extra inches while I drink my coffee!

Who knows when our lawn-mower will be here, if it ever arrives - my goodness! Eventually I decide to contact Amanda, a local young woman with a garden-maintenance business, and luckily she can come tomorrow morning and cut the grass, so that's good. And she says she's got a good mower, which is nice.

But what a crazy world we live in!!!!

Meanwhile I don't think we dare order anything else from Amazon. Those poor people at the "wrong house" - they've suffered enough I think haha!!

16:00 We settle down on the couch to have a go at the puzzles in next week's Radio Times.

And it's another great cover on Radio Times this week, that's for sure.

Lois and I have never watched Bridgerton - we suspect it's on some channel you have to pay for. But it's interesting to see that one of the statutory actresses-of-colour in this prequel show is going to be the amazing India Amarteifio. Do you remember her from Doctor Who? Come on now, you must remember!

Remember India Amarteifio in "Doctor Who"? (2015?)

What we wonder is, are all these "inclusive" shows, especially the historical ones, giving the impression that things were all fine and dandy for people of colour in past centuries? And if so, it is the end for any drama documentaries that cover historical racial injustice?

A real talking point, that is, isn't it - my goodness.

Just yesterday Lois was listening to a radio programme about Robert Peary, the American explorer who is credited as being the first person to stand at the North Pole. And although it was Peary who got the kudos, he was apparently accompanied all the way to the Pole by an Afro-American, Matthew Henson, who's not anywhere near as famous as Peary, although I think efforts to redress the balance here and honour Henson's achievement, have been taking place more recently.

These days if you particularly wanted to portray some of the injustices that have been visited on people of colour around the world throughout the centuries, how do you portray that fact, when in historical dramas coming out now, there seems to be no distinction made between the races?

I'd like to be told, by the way. Answers on a postcard as usual haha!!

But back to the puzzles - we make a decent stab at Popmaster this week, with 7 out of 10, even getting one of the 1990's questions right, which is unusual.

On the other hand, we only get 6 out of 10 in the academically more prestigious "Eggheads" questions. As usual we strike out on any questions to do with sport, or films. Oh dear!

We've got a bone to pick with Radio Times today, however, with their weekly "Only Connect" puzzle. These puzzles are difficult enough already without having to deal with the appalling tally of Radio Times typos and misprints. Don't they have anybody to check the puzzles before the magazine goes to the printers? And if not, why not?

The categories are (1) US states, (2) famous people called Williams, (3) song titles with repeated words, and (4) Australian actresses. But in the "Famous people called 'Williams'" category, due to a typo, "Venus" has appeared on the page as "Venue", which is a real time-waster.

My goodness !!!! Wake up, Radio Times !!!!!!

20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch an interesting documentary about the Royal Family, with especial focus on the Queen's troublesome children and grandchildren, mainly Andrew and Harry. It's a programme that Steve, our American brother-in-law, has expressed curiosity about the other day.

Lois and I think that the programme does a very good canter through the issues of the Queen's children and grandchildren, mainly covering Andrew, Harry and Meghan. It's a good reminder of what she had to put up with in the last decade or so of her life, but not really adding much in the way of fresh insights.

Amongst tonight's talking heads, it's nostalgic to see a couple of "yesterday's men" that Lois and I had almost forgotten about: Chris Patten, former Conservative Cabinet Minister and last Governor of Hong Kong, and also John Scarlett, head of SIS (Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6). Remember them?

Flashback to 1984: Hong Kong in happier times -

Margaret Thatcher tours the city in 1984

Farewell to Hong Kong

John Scarlett - Lois and I had forgotten all about him - oh dear!

What does strike Lois and me about the programme is to see quite graphically Prince Harry's emotional and psychological problems developing in more recent years.

He was perfectly okay when he was with the Army in Afghanistan: it was a clearly defined job with objectives, which he had to achieve with his team, and he knew exactly what was expected of him. The moment he came home, he seemed to lose his way.

Here we see him being interviewed at the British base of Bastion, Afghanistan.

Interviewer: "Is there a sense of sadness..."

"...that you're going back to the UK?"

Harry: "That hurt being pulled out at that point..."

"... being dragged away from my guys"

At that point the interview is curtailed - an alarm sounds and we suddenly see Harry running off towards his unit's helicopters.

Yikes!!!!

There always seem to be a real problems with the so-called "spares" - Prince Harry now, and Prince Andrew before him, and Princess Margaret before that. It's a pity, because the rest of the system works so well! Damn !!!!!

21:00 We go to bed on another of the TV reality documentaries focussing on the life of the married stand-up comics Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont, "Meet the Richardsons".

It's obvious tonight that Jon is quite a difficult man for Lucy to "manage" - a bit like some of the problems that Lois has with me.

Lucy wants Jon to "mix" more, so she's signed him up to play football with some of the other dads at their daughter's primary school.

Interviewer: "And how is it meeting new men?"

Jon - "Uh, it's horrible."

"I hate meeting new people"

"That's why I've still got the friends I had when I was ten."

Lucy knows that Jon doesn't want to do football with the other dads, but that doesn't stop him practising in the back garden.

"He's so competitive!", she says.

Lucy - "I know he doesn't want to do the football

but it hasn't...."

"stopped him practising in the garden"

"He's so competitive!"

It's funny, but some weeks I can totally identify with Jon, although I don't go so far as to wear those cardigans he's so fond of. But perhaps I should?

Do let me know what you advise, won't you !!!!

Also tonight Lucy goes to see Canadian comedienne Katherine Ryan, to persuade her to take part in Lucy's planned all-female sketch show.

Katherine advises Lucy to get pregnant again, to keep in the public eye. Both women are in their 30s/40s.