Sunday 1st April 2007: The Easter fortnight is well and truly upon us and with it came a couple of kids away
today, although they actually do five rounds between them! Subsequently I was glad to see the papers arrive very early before
4am and thought it would be a good idea to text my early Sunday
colleague to tell him that they were in. I don't think he quite
shared my enthusiasm although it's some sweet revenge for him doing the same to me at 3am one Sunday to tell me that he was up!
Whilst most deliverers hate the rain, I cannot stand windy conditions and at one of my first calls today, the wind took the gate
out of my hands and made an almighty racket as it slammed back against the frame. Not content with that, I scratched my hand against
the edge of the free CD in the Times as I struggled to fold it in the Force 8 gale. Darned things need a safety warning on them
I reckon.
Tuesday 3rd April 2007: The most noticeable thing this morning was the wind which has got very strong and very cold,
although I suspect that it had little to do with my early morning shock when I turned the corner on the way to work to be
confronted by a large silhouette. After my initial surprise, it turned out to be a big green wheelie bin slap bang in the
middle of the street which had obviously been placed there as a joke to try and catch someone out. Well it worked! We had a new
lad start on a round yesterday and today he didn't turn up, so he's probably made some kind of record for shortest ever time on
a paper round.
Wednesday 4th April 2007: Another new van driver today although he seems pretty good and was here around 4:30am so no complaints there. A couple of
kids out today with `no-show` from yesterday to cover (although hopefully we should have that sorted today) whilst another lad has gone down with a nasty cold. I can count his days off on the fingers of one hand so again no problems with that. Going back to Sunday, probably the best of the April Fools stories in the papers was the one that said that London
had admitted they couldn't cope with hosting the 2012 Olympics and had agreed to share them with Paris! You can imagine the backlash of the great British (gullible) public, as a
sure-fire way of annoying the nation is to bring the French into the equation. They did a similar one a few years ago when they did a story about the measurements for the Channel Tunnel being wrong and that the two ends
would not meet in the middle! My personal favourite remains the left-handed Mars bar though.
Thursday 5th April 2007: Ten out of ten, or four out of four to the pedantic as the Standard arrived on time for the fourth week in a row. We hope that this is the start of the early year problems being resolved. This week is a bit odd as tomorrow is Good Friday and a Bank Holiday although few people see it as anything other than a normal day. We'll be closing earlier than usual I expect but just how early remains to be seen. Either way, we did our best this morning to squeeze all of Friday's work into Thursday morning which has left us wondering just what day it actually is. We have a new arrangement this Sunday as one of our regular adults is away for Easter so I took the temporary replacement around his route to give him an idea of how it will all work. Finally spare a thought for those England cricket fans who stayed up late to see the rather dramatic end to the game against Sri Lanka (too late for me after an evening of the new combined sport of Champions League Football and police brutality!). England needed three runs for an unlikely win after they looked dead and buried and as the last ball was bowled, the commentator screeched with delight as the ball sailed to the boundary for four runs. What he'd failed to spot was that to get to the boundary, it had clipped the top of the stumps, putting the England batsman out and winning the game for Sri Lanka. Just seen the highlights and it was very comical to listen to.
Friday 6th April 2007: Good Friday and the second bank holiday of the year saw the latest papers in ages as the Mirror delayed matters for the rest of the deliveries. Our driver arrived at 5:10am but at least everything was on board and we had no nasty re-runs to cope with. Marks and Spencer opened in Frome yesterday and, by all accounts it was pretty manic down there with various promotions and giveaways going on. With that in mind, one of the staff came in today and I asked her how opening day had gone and she admitted that it was heaving but people were actually complaining that they had to queue up to be served! Clearly these people have never been in a Lidl or Aldi before.
Saturday 7th April 2007: Papers lovely and early however that's the least newsworthy info this morning! One of our very early customers was in almost an hour later than usual today and told us that he was awoken at 2:30am to the sound of shouting outside his house. To cut a long story short, two people had been stabbed on his lawn and since then there were police, sniffer dogs and ambulances all over his little area, not to mention the road being closed. On a lighter note, a bit later on, myself and one of our deliverers could hear music coming from outside the office and it was getting progressively louder. Thinking it was a car with the radio on slowing down outside, I didn't take much notice until a chap walked by with a guitar over his shoulder, strumming and singing at the top of his voice! Not a sight you see often at 5:30am!!
Sunday 8th April 2007: Happy Easter to our reader and it certainly was for us first thing as all the papers arrived by...3:35am!! Great stuff and got us off to a flyer which was ideal with one of our main deliverers away. In fact, all told the morning went well enough with no major problems apart from the usual missing mags and the Observer missing around a dozen of one of their inserts. Rather disappointingly we had no Easter eggs given to us, however we'll overcome this major snub and get on with things as though nothing had happened. I mean chocolate is supposedly bad for you and we shouldn't eat it anyway. The church opposite us had an early service today (if you call 7am early!!) and then laid on breakfast for its congregation and although my wife and daughter were both helping to serve the breakfast, neither of them brought any bacon and eggs down for us poor workers. Another snub! It would be easy to lose weight working here I can assure you.
Monday 9th April 2007: Easter Monday and whilst Denise is off sunning herself on the Costa Del Dorset, I knew I'd be in on my usual day off. Our normal early lady on a Monday said that she'd still do the papers us as usual which gave me a bit of a lie in (5am instead of 3am!), however it has put me totally out of sync as I was up two hours later, gave the dog an extra long walk, had a bath (instead of the usual quick fire wash) and even watched some telly before coming out to work. Even now, an hour after coming in, I feel that there is stacks that I haven't done! Mind you, sat at home I was like a cat on a hot tin roof with itching powder in it's fur as I simply didn't know what to do with the spare time before work! Back to normality tomorrow
thankfully.
One of our lads has just come in a few minutes later and after apologising, he blamed it on an Easter egg that he ate yesterday. I was about to point out that it shouldn't make much difference until he mentioned that it was flavoured with brandy! He obviously slept well.
Tuesday 10th April 2007: The end of the longest Bank Holiday of the year and everything back to normal today with all the early morning workers in for their papers. Prior to that though it was so quiet and still when I got up with not even a gust of wind in the air. That peace was shattered when I was getting the dog ready for his walk when someone started up their diesel van right outside our front window which made both me and the canine jump the proverbial mile. According to the Star today (so it must be true!) we are set for 80 degree temps this month. I'll believe that when I see it, however we are in the position in our office that we can open the door and let the sunshine pour in. Of course, the same goes for the wind and rain sadly.
Wednesday 11th April 2007: No extra time in either football match last night (although it was touch and go in the Chelsea game) and it probably helped our papers arrive by 4:20am which was great. Prior to that I jumped out of my skin for the second day in a row when I startled a cat who was
rummaging through a bin near the office. Mind you, if I scared him, he returned the compliment in kind when he scrambled away from the bin at top speed! As you'd expect, with everyone rushing around first thing trying to get papers sorted out, the language can get somewhat industrial on occasions so I suggested that we could install a swear box in the office to try and raise the overall level. The look on the faces was a sight to behold and one early adult suggested it would be easier if I just kept his wages. In fact, the overall collective response would have cost around £8.70 I reckon!
Thursday 12th April 2007: Another Thursday and another on-time arrival of the Standards which I make five in a row. Hopefully
their early year problems are well and truly banished to the `remember when` file and I won't need to keep on about the rarity of
it. Time will tell. I had to send one of our early adults down Asda first thing. Not because we'd ran out of bread or anything but
with both vans arriving at once, I failed to notice that we had three bundles missing (Express, Mirror and odd & sods). Our main
driver goes to Asda after us and by the time our man found him, he'd already spotted his error and was about to come back. Good story
in the paper about a man reported to the RSPCA for illegally keeping 77 sheep in his garden! The officials took over four hours to
count them as they kept falling asleep!! I should add that whilst the actual story is true, I can't take credit for the
punch line
supplied by Virgin Radio which had me in stitches!
Friday 13th April 2007: Friday the 13th today although here at `chez media distribution centre` we're not superstitious so it doesn't really affect us. Papers weren't too bad today and no chasing off to Asda for us this morning either. Tomorrow is the Grand National with all the tipsters giving us their hot tips. Naturally if you ask six different people you'll get six different dead certs so I'll do what I usually do and keep my pennies in my pocket although the fact that my knowledge of horse racing is akin to my knowledge of the moons of Jupiter also has something to do with it. Right, now I'm off to find a black cat to walk in front of me whilst touching wood and minding that ladder!
Saturday 14th April 2007: A remarkably `normal` Saturday today with the papers in a little after 4:40am, all the kids in on
time and not a single problem to report apart from a colour TV mag that wasn't delivered to one particular call. One of our early
adults has a new (for him) car and he seems to have taken to it well, as has his dog who gave me the usual `what the hell are you doing
near my car` look when I had a stroll around it whilst waiting for the papers. Monday sees the kids back to school although I have to
give credit where it's due, all of ours have been very good this fortnight especially after a quiet word with the trio who seemed to
be working in their own unique time zone.
Sunday 15th April 2007: Papers in early again and all kids in, however we had a bundle of papers that we take to a nearby hotel go missing and at the time of typing, we're still trying to get to the bottom of it. No problems apart from that although the front pages of the papers are somewhat annoying as they all have a different slant on the Prince William/Kate Middleton split. I wonder if I'm the only one fed up with the seemingly blanket coverage of this? But then I got thinking about what the headlines would have been from twenty years ago when Wills was still a nipper? "Wills Breaks Favourite Toy?" or "Wills Gets A Cold. Lemsip Come To The Rescue!" I should add that if anyone connected to royalty is reading, I'm really only joking as I don't fancy a spell in the Tower of London! Stop Press: Lost bundle located at eleventh hour. Residents able to eat breakfast over Wills and Kate after all.
Monday 16th April 2007: Today is usually my day off however needs must and I've had to swap a few things around for this week. Subsequently today seemed odd for me especially with no big blue boxes of magazines to check in first thing. Our driver was nice and early as well which meant an early finish setting all the rounds up and probably typing this diary as early as I've ever done. Now, on a serous note, it has come to my attention that a certain person close to me is reading this each and every day (no problem with that) and then telling me about any kind of mistakes I've made, be it typo's, formatting errors, whatever. I'll be the first to admit that mistakes can creep in, however I'm going to be extra careful from now on and I guarantee that there are no errors in today's ramblings as I've dooble-chicked it all to avoid having the poss taken out of mee!
Tuesday 17th April 2007: Last week I saw notification in the trade press that Womans Own was increaseing it's price by 7p to 85p. No problem so I changed our records ahead of time yet this morning it comes in at a special price of 50p! Now, call me a cynic, but is this a sly ploy to try and make the customer not notice the increase? Anyway, away from cynical mode, the papers were nicely on time and all the kids are now back to school (one school was still off yesterday) which makes things easier for us. Denise is back from holiday today and if it's anything like me when I get back from time off, it takes me ages to get back into the old routine. Then the paper van arrives and it's back to reality.
Thursday 19th April 2007: No entry yesterday (sorry) as I was in London however all seemed to have gone well apart from one
of our lads getting a puncture and being unable to finish his round. Today was good with Standards in again (six weeks on the trot
now) and the papers in at 4:40am which was pretty good considering that the football didn't finish until just before 10pm last night.
For a few years now my wife and I have had to go up to the big City a couple of times a year, however I'm always a bit wary when we do.
In the past, we've been there on the day that London won the 2012 Olympics bid which was the day AFTER the 7/7 bombings. We were always
there slap bang in the middle of the petrol strikes a few years back and, biggest of all, one of our appointments in the past was
on September 11th 2001! Fingers crossed for a quiet next few days.
Friday 20th April 2007: A bit of a bitty morning today and whilst Little Britain fans will have a different image to that
altogether, it means that whilst nothing major went wrong big-time, there was enough little snags to keep us occupied. Biggest problem
was a shortage on the Racing Post and whilst it was only half a dozen short, that's enough when they are all ordered. They arrived
by 7:30am so not too bad. People are not always quick to praise good service and whilst we appreciate that anyone will complain
if their lawn is being trampled on, it's always nice to hear the other side of the coin. Today we heard of one of our youngest
paperboys and how he offered to help an elderly customer of his when she was taking her rubbish and recycling out to the bottom
of her steps. Well done to him. Positive proof that there is some good among all the bad press.
Saturday 21st April 2007: Good morning and welcome to Saturday StoryTime! Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin... Once upon a time there was a newsagent who thought that his Saturday was going well when the paper van arrived nice and early at 4:20am. How wrong he was! To begin with the silly newsagent cracked his elbow on the frame of the door when lugging papers from the van and ending up doing something resembling a demented Irish jig which he thought might ease the pain. It didn't. Then whilst nursing his sore elbow, the phone rang and it was the wife of one of his early adult workers to say that he had been on a job in Dublin yesterday and that the ferry had been delayed and he wouldn't be in. Cue more mad rushing around as others mucked in to help cover his three rounds. Things didn't improve for our hero as he then picked up a bundle of
Independent only for the strap to break and scatter the papers in a lovely pattern all over the floor. The star of our show was beginning to wonder what he'd done to upset the god of early morning workers when he opened the computer and entered the wrong date (July instead of April!) on the newsagents program that he uses.
Unfortunately, even when the system asked him if this was correct, he pressed Y thereby messing up each and every account! However, don't despair as he then realised that he'd backed everything up just 12 hours earlier and
transferred the data from the back up to the PC and to his surprise everything appears to be okay. Our dopey newsagent is now hoping that the worst is behind him and that the rest of the day will be an improvement on the first couple of hours. His elbow still hurts and he reckons that he might have done something serious or permanent. Still, never mind eh...
Sunday 22nd April 2007: After yesterday, today was somewhat less eventful once the papers arrived. They were a bit later at
4:45am but nothing major. A bundle of our Observer mags went walkabouts but our wholesalers were quick on the ball and the missing
ten were with us by 6:30am and well in time for the kids missing them. One of our lads was away, resulting in my driving around
one of the new mazes in the town, also known as a new estate. I was quite chuffed with myself that I managed to get in and out without
getting lost or the need for a map and sat nav. Incidentally, one of the `roads` in the estate is called Kissing Batch! There can't be
many of those around the nation I shouldn't think.
Tuesday 24th April 2007: A bit of a rare sight today as we has rain for the first time in 22 days although I should add that I'm not the one counting and any
inaccuracies are not down to me. One of our lads is out for the week after pulling a muscle probably playing football, rugby,
tiddlywinks or some other dangerous sport. The new three-way traffic lights in Locks Hill are causing us no end of problems as one of our calls is slap-bang in the middle of the roadworks and we have to go half way round the estate to be able to get anywhere near it. Imagine flying from England to Brazil but having to go via Japan - on a smaller scale obviously - and you have some idea.
Wednesday 25th April 2007: Not the best start today when I noticed that someone had knocked the wing mirror off of our shop car overnight. Whilst there's no major damage and we should be able to patch it up, it's still annoying to say the least. When I worked for a now defunct football website, we had a saying that there's nothing like a last minute go to mess up a perfectly good match report (phrase toned down slightly admittedly) and thanks to Man United last night doing just that, it probably had an effect in the papers being a bit later than usual, especially the Sun and Times which
arrived shortly before 5am. Personally I would blame Man United for everything possible especially after my wife tricked me into going onto their official web site yesterday. My PC hasn't been the same since.
Thursday 26th April 2007: Quite a tricky entry to write today as it won't be a day easily forgotten yet apart from one
incident (the less said the better really!) all went swimmingly with early papers, all deliverers in and the Standards in on time
again. So instead I thought we'd have some educational material thrown in with some 20th history to enjoy. So, boys and girls,
what historic event occurred on this very day in 1992? Give up? Shameful! It was of course the day that Leeds United clinched the
old first division title for only the second (and last!) time in their history. 15 years on and we are on the verge of relegation to
the third level for the first time ever. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow once the spell of self pity wears off.
Friday 27th April 2007: The calm after yesterday's storm thankfully and all went well enough once papers were in. They were actually quite late by usual standards and came in just before 5am. Quite a few people doing additional and extra rounds for the next two days before we have a major re-arrange on Monday but we are confident that the service will remain unaffected and that customers will still get their papers at pretty much the usual time. We're still a little on edge early in the morning, a point proved when one of our early adults accidentally knocked over a plank of wood in our marking up room causing one hell of a bang! Whilst he saw it coming and was prepared, myself and one other didn't and I reckon it was a toss up between which one of us jumped the highest!
Saturday 28th April 2007: Papers were in quite late again as they turned up just before 5am. Someone in Bristol had stuck
a Guardian label on a bundle of Indy mags leaving us with two many of the latter and not enough of the former. Thankfully our
wholesalers were on the ball and had it sorted quickly. One of our lads was off to Cardiff today so I did his round, sparking a
mini-panic with one of his customers when she saw me delivering and thought that her usual boy had left. She was quite relieved
when I put her right. Nice to see customers get used to, and appreciate, our delivery personnel. The warm weather returned today with
a vengeance. It must have been well above average as our Saturday worker actually turned the heater off! This feat is practically
unheard of!
Sunday 29th April 2007: Papers were in nice and early with everything in by 4:20am. What followed was largely uneventful with
everyone in and no delivery problems at all. That said we were a little lucky to still be here as my wife always calls into the
office prior to going to church and as she's on oxygen, it perhaps wasn't the best idea in the world for my Sunday colleague to
try out his cigarette lighter within a few feet of her and her oxygen! Thankfully nothing happened as she realised straight away
the possible implications. On an aside, I've been watching and enjoying a lot of the World Snooker Championships (anything to get away
from the plight of Leeds United!) but why do the BBC have horses in the opening titles for the snooker? I think we should be told
especially after the letter I had from the licence department asking me why I didn't have a current TV licence!! Had they managed
to get my name and address right, then they would have realised that we did!
