Danskcolin: Tuesday January 16th 2024

07:00 I wake up thinking about my Amazon order for Kenco coffee. Do you ever do that? Not about my order, obviously but about yours, needless to say!

Then my heart sinks. I remember that, in a moment of weakness or plain forgetfulness, I had stupidly ordered the coffee from AMAZON.

Grrrrr!!!! What an idiot I was!!!

a typical Amazon delivery-driver

Lois and I had been avoiding ordering things from Amazon for several months, after we discovered that their local delivery driver was taking all our deliveries to a house a mile away from here, and dumping them on the doorstep of a couple we didn't know. We are newcomers to Malvern, having downsized in October 2022 to a house here on a new-build housing estate.

What madness it was!!!!

At least, however, it enabled us to get to know one other elderly couple here, which was nice. At the time, we had just moved in, and we knew nobody here. So at least we could say that we knew what's-his-name and his wife Judith, because at first they kindly brought our stuff round to us, and then after that Lois and I drove down to their house to pick up the delivery there.

what's-his-name and Judith, the unlucky recipients

of all our Amazon deliveries

Later in the day today, my worst fears are realised - we get a call from Judith to say that the driver had dumped the coffee on their doorstep, taken a quick picture, and then got back into his van and sped away.

I filed an "unsatisfactory" report for Amazon, but I know they don't read them, so it won't do any good. As usual, they don't list my particular problem as a possible option to tick, but I do the best I can.

What IS their problem?!!!!!!

Lois and I regularly see Amazon Prime delivery vans delivering to other residents on our street. Does our stuff get misdelivered simply because we don't subscribe to Amazon Prime? Does non-Prime customers' stuff get given to some rubbish delivery drivers in unmarked vans, who probably don't even speak English???

Isn't it a pity that we're not told, really, isn't it !!!!

Amazon says "parcel was handed to resident". No it wasn't, Amazon. Judith has told me !!!!!

We arrange with Judith to call round and pick up the coffee tomorrow morning.

Grrrrrrrr !!!!!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

07:30 Now, here's another question - where would YOU choose to live in the world, if you had a complete choice? It's especially important, isn't it, if you have children.

Onion News, the influential news website, recently came up with what was supposed to be "The Ten Best Places to Raise a Family", but after months of allegedly "painstaking" research they only found 2 places to note down - so the other 8 places are still up for grabs, which is interesting!

The first place chosen by the website was somewhere in Scandinavia, or as the website puts it, in its down-to-earth way, "F****** Norway".

Second place in the Top Ten went to "Not Anyplace You Actually Want to Live".

And third place went to....

Whaaaaaaaaaaat ??????

Well, frankly I just don't believe it! There are tons more places in the world that the Onion could have showcased for their "Top Ten" - I suspect it's just a case, regrettably all too frequent these days, of what-I-call "lazy journalism".

08:00 That "Onion News" fiasco of a story came out all of 4 years ago now, but I recall it this morning, when I'm reading the local news in bed with Lois.

Lois comments briefly. "What Onion News needs is somebody like [Worcester News's promising young cub reporter] Nathan "Scoop" Russell, who reports today that Worcester is one of the 10 best places to live in the UK.", she says.

And she showed me this bombshell article by young Nathan on her smartphone:

There you are, you see - ace reporter Nathan has obviously been out of his office, and onto the streets of Worcester, talking to ordinary people, who are always the best judges. I suspect the Onion's reporter maybe "couldn't be bothered" to travel the whole world to get material for his story, which is sad.

But here's a point that people aren't taking into account. Would Worcester have been rated so highly in the list, if people had stopped to think of the poor efficiency of the local Amazon delivery drivers?

And I start to sketch out a letter to Nathan in my head. So watch out - you may see my picture in tomorrow's edition of the website! [I'm not holding my breath! - Ed]

I wonder..... !!!!

09:00 This is no day for Lois and me to lie too long abed today, however, because it's "M Day", "M" for Marmalade of course - and Lois is already thinking of all she's got to do.

And pretty soon she's dressed and downstairs with her apron on, and up to her arms in the stuff (not literally!!!!).

Initially she's expecting to produce 10lbs of marmalade, so she gets 10 one-pound empty glass jars ready on the dining-table. However it soon becomes apparent that she's got more marmalade than she bargained for. And in the end she fills 13 jars - "lucky for some", which is nice!

extra empty glass jars are quickly assembled

to deal with our unexpected EU-style

"marmalade mountain"

It's very much "Kudos, Lois!" time again, in addition, because she again has to cope with a right-handed ladle. And she's a "leftie" as I expect you remember.

a typical right-handed ladle, with only one

little "pourer-thingummyjig", which, unhelpfully

for "lefties", has bee placed on the left-hand side

You can get left-handed tin-openers, can't you, or even no-handed tin-openers, so why can't you get left-handed ladles? I think we should be told, don't you, and quickly!!!!

you can get no-handed tin-openers, so why

has nobody invented the no-handed ladle?

I think we should be told!

Despite her unhelpful kitchen equipment, Lois comes out with the goods in the end, which is the important thing - 13lbs of marmalade: a record for her, and there's even enough left over at the end to spread on half a piece of brown bread that she offers me this afternoon, as a "sampler".

Yum yum!

20:00 We wind down on the couch by watching the first programme in the BBC's new series of Winterwatch, a live programme, in a series surveying the state of wild life in the UK as winter begins to bite.

This is a fascinating opener to the new series. Who knew, for instance, that every so often - say, every 5 years or so - the UK gets "invaded" by thousands of waxwings from Scandinavia? It only happens when there aren't enough berries for them in their Nordic homelands.

To start with, they settle in north-east Scotland, but as the winter wears on, they move further and further south, into northern and eastern England, and this winter for the first time they've come as far as South West England.

If you want to see one, the best place is a supermarket car-park, of all places, because supermarkets tend to plant the sort of trees that have the berries they like.

And the best way to tempt them into your garden is to stick some apples on a branch or pole, somewhere where the birds can see them anyway.

Or if you're brave, and can stand still enough with an apple or two in your hand, you might even tempt some waxwing onto your arms. We see a fascinating flashback to Winterwatch 2013, when a little kid called Henry in the far north of the UK - either Fair Isle or Shetland, it isn't clear which - managed to lure some of these charming little buggers up really close and personal, which was nice.

That little kid Henry is now 22, we're reliably informed.

What a crazy planet we live on!!!!

And here's another puzzle cleared up. How come tawny owls and barn owls can fly off on a hunt for their prey without making any noise, thus taking their victims by surprise? The answer is not just biology but also physics, it turns out, and it's all the result of the weird saw-teeth-like tips to their wings: these keep the sound of the air that the owls are pushing through close to their feathers, thus preventing the sound of their flight from escaping.

What madness, again!!!! But this advantage certainly leaves those owls "quids in", when it comes to how many little animals, like voles etc, that they can "bag" whenever they're hungry.

Here's another scientific advance. Till recently scientists weren't able to track the movement of any goldcrest that they could get hold of. These little guys are so small. They're about the size of a 20p piece - the birds not the scientists - and weighing about the same, i.e. 5.5g, or one fifth of an ounce. So too small to put an electronic tag on, basically.

Now scientists have developed a "nanotag", weighing 0.16g or a thousandth of an ounce, which they can safely attach to some of these little chaps.

one of the new "nanotags", weighing only 0.16g or

one thousandth of an ounce - the wire protruding

on the right-hand-side is its aerial.

And a goldcrest has been tracked flying the 199 miles from the Netherlands to Yorkshire in 8 hours, which suggests a speed of 27 mph, although of course the goldcrest are clever enough to wait for just the right wind and just the right wind direction etc. And they always feed up before the flight to make sure they've got the stamina, a bit like Lois and me before we do a walk.