Perplexed

I am perplexed. I read in 'The Week' that the city of Patna in India has a very successful scheme to embarrass tax defaulters into paying up. They send 'gangs of eunuchs' dressed in saris and with heavy make-up to stand on the perp's doorstep and chant
'Pay the tax! Pay the tax! Your reputation will be tarnished!' and it works like a charm.
But here's the thing. I can see that Rodgers Video could use a spiffy scheme like this. They have difficulty getting video games back. Hell, they tell me they even have difficulty getting DVDs back since they decided to abolish late fees. But where the hell do you find a gang of eunuchs? Where would you find one even? Lord T'underin' it doesn't even bear thinking about.

It seems that Canada Post draws the line at actually ringing doorbells. I had ordered some books from Amazon.ca and had received an e-mail telling me that they had dispatched it and it would be delivered by the 30th of April, thus reminding us why the term 'snail mail' became popular.
However, a small searchette revealed that yesterday it had arrived in Richmond and was 'out for delivery'.
My experience with the Royal Mail parcel services in Britain is that they only deliver at times when the entire nation is at work, thus you get to queue for an hour in a small office in the bum hole of Commercial Road in order to retrieve your package.
So I waited, wanting to avoid replicating this experience here. I didn't have the TV or the music on, not wanting to miss hearing the doorbell.
Well, I know my criticisms of Canada Post have been manifold, but stealth they apparently do brilliantly. Maybe they should be, maybe they already are, an arm of the SS, because one moment I was sweeping my doorstep and there was no parcel there, the next, there it was. Magic. Hmmmmm.

Peter O'Toole is 74 and according to Gaby Wood in the Observer, he looks it. It must be true that alcohol pickles you, he survives despite himself, or maybe the Irish really do have hardier livers than the rest of us.

"He claims he really did once go for a drink in Paris and wake up in Corsica ........ Michael Caine was O'Toole's understudy in The Long and the Short and the Tall; considering he never went on stage, Caine later said, it was incredible he was so exhausted at the end of the run, but waiting anxiously in the wings every night as O'Toole swung in at the very last minute was enough to give any man a coronary. Once, the pair went out drinking and woke up in a strange flat. 'What time is it?' Caine asked. 'Never mind what time it is,' said O'Toole, 'What fucking day is it?' And sure enough, it was two days later, three hours before curtain up."

You have to either admire or abhor such behaviour, but for my part, I just deeply respect him as an actor.