Modern Times

Since we're treating each other to a fancy train ride to Bath and back tomorrow, Christmas shopping at Forges-L'Evêque this year is confined to stocking fillers.  I ordered one for Management on line on the 4th, and the suppliers (name on application) managed to release it to the arguably helvetically musical delivery company only three days later.  At that point it positively whizzed round the country, from Exeter to Wednesbury to Hailsham in something like fifteen hours.  It then sat in the Hailsham Depot for four and a half days, and then rattled around in the van for another three days.  It then went back into hurtle mode again, leaving Hailsham yesterday afternoon, being re-sealed (ominous...) at Hatfield shortly after midnight, and is now supposedly with a Maidstone courier.  The problem seems to have been that I put in an extra '3' when I was typing in the postcode - or in any case, the file acquired the superfluous digit at some stage.  Odd that no-one actually read the address during the 7 days it was rattling around East Sussex.  Distance from Exeter to Forges-L'Evêque: 206 miles.  Distance actually travelled: 539, plus whatever distance it covered before someone read the address label.  It'll be interesting to see what state it's in when (and if) it gets here.  I read that it went out with a courier 18 minutes ago, so we'll see how long the last 20 miles takes.  It's fascinating that lasers, computers and the bar code on the label let us keep up to date in something approaching real time on the whereabouts of our stocking fillers.  It's a shame they don't use a spot of Mark I eyeball and intelligence as well.  Same might be said of my data input, of course....