Billions of bilious, blue, blistering barnacles!

As Captain Haddock would say. Something like that, anyway. He'd say that when sorely tested - perhaps by murderous extraterrestrial mushrooms or Professor Calculus doing something particularly deaf. Which Muse inspires me to such expostulations? The Muse of inept Postal Services, of course. If all is smooth as a dream, I am happy. I do not notice the good work of postal employees. But when something goes awry, I feel the pain, not those fellows. You recall the Saga of the Lost Bombard? It went to Germany and never reached its buyer. Therefore, what did I do? I sent a replacement. That never reached the chap, either, and so it bounced back here. Now the Canadian postal service is at it. They haven't delivered summat, and it's sitting in storage - perhaps until they try a second time.

Last time the clowns at Deutsche Post gave the package a new tracking number, which they did not give me, the sender, nor did they give it to the recipient. He was sat at home all day on the day they claimed to have tried to deliver it. He even met the postman, and got some other letters off him! But no damned parcel. As a result of that fiasco, when people buy stuff off me on Ebay, their Paypal payments take 21 days to come through. I don't have any money! So not getting even enough money to send a package is a pretty dreadful (you have no idea how bowdlerised that word was) deal. One digs oneself deeper into debt for a payment which - in this case - is unlikely to appear, if the Canadian postal service proves to be as inept as its Teutonic counterpart.

I need this damned money. I need it. But what can I do when these blasted postal services, on whom I must rely, can't be bothered to do their jobs? Bugger all. That's what: nothing! If you, o reader, are a postal employee who does a good job, and doesn't try to give your impoverished customer aneurysms, then I thank you. But if you're one of these . . . time to replace words again, one of these charming chaps who can't be bothered to do his job, and whose laziness and incompetence screws this wee unemployed twerp over, then may angry gnomes with sticks beat your toes throughout your life!

On the positive side, at least the staggering and grotesque incompetence of some halfwits at Deutsche Post has led to my use of tracking on every damned parcel, so it's swiftly demonstrable that I have posted it. Maybe my prospective recipients and I could pelt these jerks with less than fresh fruit until they deliver the blasted packages. I threw some old tomatoes out earlier, and now wish I had not.