Personal correspondence

For reasons that need not detain us, I needed to post a DVD to Greece on Friday. The man at Hebden Bridge Post Office weighed the slim envelope, consulted his computer, and told me that the postage would be £1.28. Bargain!

Then the man flexed the corner of the envelope suspiciously. “Have you enclosed a letter in here?” he asked.

Ha! Not catching me out with that one! “Oh, no,” I replied, quite truthfully, “it's just a DVD, nothing else!”

The man then re-consulted his computer, and told me that the postage would actually be £5.xx. I didn't catch the exact amount, as I went into shock after the words five pounds.

The man explained that, had the envelope contained a letter as well as a DVD, it would count as personal correspondence. Without such a letter, it was classified as a small package. Small packages cost more to send than personal correspondence. Considerably more, apparently.

“What?” I whatted. “It costs £4 more to send exactly the same envelope without a letter than it does with a letter?!”

The man nodded.

I looked him straight in the eyes. “That's BONKERS!” I observed.

The look on the man's face told me two things: 1) I was by no means the first customer to make this observation, and 2) he agreed.

I then has a brain-wave and disclosed, once again quite truthfully, that I had, in fact, written in pen on front of the DVD. I asked if this didn't make the DVD itself into personal correspondence. The man confirmed my suspicion that it didn't.

So, I took my envelope back, went home, opened it, took out the DVD, addressed a brand new envelope, inserted the DVD and a note to the recipient saying words to the effect of “By enclosing this note, I am saving ⅔ of the postage. I trust you are well.”, sealed the envelope, wrote the words PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE! on the bottom, returned to the Post Office, and announced, “I'd like to send some personal correspondence to Greece, please.”

It cost me £1.28.

Some people are never bloody satisfied

It has been suggested to me that my scoop about Stense sitting on a hill with her dog last Thursday was somewhat unsatisfactory, in that it was totally un-newsworthy. I would beg to differ. Hello? It was about Bafta-award-winning Stense, directrix of prime-time TV shows, and a total fox. It even involved a dog. Animal interest, and all that! How much more newsworthy could it possibly be?

But if it's genuine, no-holds-barred, rock ‘n’ roll gossip you fickle punters are after, try this for size…

Steve ‘Copperhead Road’ Earle has a new drummer:

Bill & Steve
Bill (L) and Steve (R) on Friday.

Apparently, Bill's going to get Steve to cut back on the mandolins. A bit less Fairport, a bit more E Street.

Once again, remember, you read it first on Gruts.

The Reckoning

For a birthday present, Stense recently bought me a year's membership to the Random Book Club. The idea is, each month, this bookshop in Scotland sends you a random book to read.

Stense had a word with them as she was buying my year's subscription, explaining that I'm a total Darwin groupie. So you can imagine my delight when my first so-called ‘random’ book was a novel about the Voyage of the Beagle. I'm saving that one for my holidays.

The Reckoning
‘The Reckoning’ by Alma Katsu this morning.

My second random book arrived this morning: The Reckoning by Alma Katsu.

To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced the bookshop put quite as much thought into this selection. For a start, The Reckoning is the second book of a trilogy. What are the odds that someone who is given this book at random will have already read part 1? Not very likely, if you ask me. And, even if they had, and even if they enjoyed it, part 3 hasn't actually been published yet, as far as I can tell. Talk about cliff-hangers!

Still, the book was described as ‘Dark and super sexy’ by no less an authority than Cosmopolitan, and it seems to involve an immoral woman with a sword, which can't be a bad thing. Oh, scrap that, my mistake—apparently, she's immortal.

Here's a sentence plucked at random from my random book (from p.190):

I turned, smiling despite my anxiety about seeing him again. “Alejandro!”

Gripping stuff! And here's another (from p.221):

“She had decided in advance how she would put me in her service, and…”

…oh, no, I can't print that on Gruts. This is supposed to be a family website!

Stense, I am frankly shocked! (But I'll let you know if there are any other good bits!)

Waa, waa!!

Tomorrow, the Fall release their difficult thirtieth album, Re-Mit. Here's a sample track:

(Jen reckons they've all been difficult albums.)

Incidentally, tomorrow also sees the start of a new TV cop show, starring Agent Scully from out of The X Files, entitled The Fall. Coincidence? I'll let you decide.

Just below the wire

BBC: 'Small blogs to be exempt' under press regulation plans.
Blogs with a turnover of less than £2m and those with fewer than 10 employees will not be subject to new press regulation, the government says.

Loyal readers will be relieved to hear that Gruts is just about safe. So the irresponsible frivolity will continue unchecked. It's all part of the grand masterplan, you see. I have it on good authority that Murdoch is cacking himself.