Just picked up this morning's post. There's a card from the Lib Dems asking me to vote for them.

(As it happens, their candidate didn't get in in Guildford, despite the former Tory MP standing as an Independent.)

Well, I guessed wrong.  As I was coming back from Tesco this morning the postman recognised me in the street.  He had an envelope that was too big to get through my letterbox and he was just about to ask my neighbour to take it.  It was a Park Inn envelope and contained the missing charger.

When I plugged in the netbook and started it up it was showing 20% charge, so I don't think it would have lasted the day.  I also have just received an e-mail from Amazon saying the spare is due to arrive Friday.

Just bought a couple of CDs from Amazon.  Although they are both released on the same label, it seems they are being dispatched from two different sellers.  An hour or so later, I received an e-mail saying that one of them (symphonies by Havergal Brian) has been dispatched and it will be arriving on 26th October.

That's over two weeks away!  I wondered if it was being delivered from somewhere deep in Europe or the US, but the seller's address is Watford.  I don't think even a snail would take two weeks to get from Watford to Guildford.

The doorbell rang just now and it was the postman with a large package.  Only he pointed out that the name of the package wasn't mine so did I want to take it or should he take it back to the depot.  I didn't recognise the name so he took it away.  As he said, probably for one of the students in the road.

He's been very helpful of late.  Last week I ordered some CDs from an online retailer and they e-mailed me to say they'd been posted Thursday.  They didn't arrive Friday and Saturday morning I had to get some shopping.  As I was leaving the house I saw the postman down the street and realised there was a good chance he'd have to deliver them while I was out.  But as I got to the end of the street, I heard a voice behind me.  The postman was chasing after me, brown package in his hand.  Very helpful.

As I was having breakfast this morning, I noticed the post had arrived.  (I have a front porch with inner and outer locked doors, so the postman puts the mail in the slot in the outer door and you have to open the inner door to get it.)  I had been hoping for this week's New Scientist, which used to arrive on Thursdays but now comes anytime from Friday to Monday, but all there was was a letter in an envelope bearing the Southbank Centre logo.

I get lots of mailings from the Southbank Centre and this one was advertising a series of performances by Tony Bennett.  Not my usual fare, but I could see why the SBC might think it was worth a try sending me it.  I was just about to add it to the recycling when I noticed the dates were in early September; the two at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank  on the 4th and 5th and two further concerts in Glasgow and Birmingham, the latest on the 11th.  My first thought was this was advanced notice for concerts next year.  A while back I was caught out when I booked to see Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on the Southbank and didn't notice that the date was over a year in advance.  I nearly turned up a year early.

But it said Thursday 4th and Friday 5th, which would be this year.  I looked at the covering letter.  Curiously, there it said Friday 4 and Saturday 5.  No year given.  And I also noticed that the date on the letter was 12th August 2014.  There is no postmark on the envelope as it is sent by some business mail company.

A check on google shows that Tony Bennett did perform in London earlier this month and there is nothing on the SBC website suggesting that he is back again the same dates next year.  Apparently, this letter has taken over a month to get here.

Still, not as odd as something that happened about ten years ago.  In December I noticed that the October issue of Analog had not yet arrived.  To put this in the context of normal American magazine publication dates, the October issue this year arrived over a month ago.  I e-mailed their subscription department and they said they'd send me a replacement copy.  I then went about my normal December Christmassy stuff.

This included visiting my father for Christmas and New Year.  I returned home the Sunday after New Year's day.  I distinctly remember picking up all my post when I got home.  I then went out to get some milk.  But as I was getting ready for bed that night, I saw something on the mat through the frosted glass on the inner door.  There was the October issue of Analog.  It seems unlikely that a postman would be making deliveries late in the evening of a Sunday on a Bank Holiday weekend.  (Because New Year's day was a Saturday, the following Monday was a Bank Holiday, too.)  This was not the replacement copy.  Normal copies come in clear plastice wraps, and replacement copies in normal opaque envelopes, and the actual replacement copy turned up about a month later.

All I can think is that as I am close to the University of Surrey, some academic had been away for a whole term and had just returned to Guildford and found piles of old post waiting for them, including my mis-delivered magazine.

This morning's post brought me a letter addressed to Alan Cox, the person I bought this house from back in 1995.  I wonder if he's even still alive.  He said he was moving abroad for his health.  I think he said it was emphysema, and he had an oxygen cylinder in the living room when I viewed the house.  (But it was possible he was also fleeing creditors, judging by the solicitor who paid me a visit a couple of weeks after I moved in.)

So, I opened it expecting it to be some advert or the like, and I was right.  It was a company called Decor Art Creations offering something called the Romantic Table Lamp of Guildford, a table lamp with a built-shade illustrated with pictures of Guildford.  Can't say that is something that would appeal to me.

It also revealed that the stilted not-quite English you find in spam also appears in paper junk mail.  Describing the manufacturing process it says:

This fixes both the nuances of colour and the motifs scratchproof and colourfast in the glass.  So that they will give you and your family years of pleasure.  The shade is support by a sturdy base.  Its stylish, timeless design fits any interior.

The letter ends:

You know this is a limited edition and will only be available for a short time.

A registration form in your name : Mr Alan Cox is already prepared.  May I ask you to use it?
So I know immediately that this reservation comes straight from you.

So reserve your personal copy today.  You will be doing so without risk: after all, your Romantic Hexagonal Lamp comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and as always you will benefit from our 100% guarantee.

Saw the post had been delivered this morning, opened the door, and there was a thick pile of post on the mat.  But at the top, in a clear plastic wrapper, was a copy of a magazine I don't subscribe to.  Sure enough, it had been mis-delivered  In fact, of the five items in the pile, three were for other addresses, one for each of the three remaining houses in the cul-de-sac in which I live.  It was as if the postman had got as far down the row as my house and then gave up and dumped the remaining stuff through my letterbox.