Election tension resting on a butter-knife edge
Changes coming so fast picking a winner now would be nutso
Ibought something online last week. And paid for it, as required. The item arrived, so I posted smiley face feedback. I thought that might be the end of the matter.
Then I was given the most effusive paragraph of praise in return. It could have been a book blurb. It was as if the shop I’d bought from was a travel writer, and I was a particularly sunny, undiscovered part of Italy. Top Gear has done less detailed reviews of sports cars.
In truth, all I’d done was the bare minimum as a purchaser: I paid for it. I didn’t pay extra, in some flamboyant display of online tipping. I didn’t pay in fragments of gold; or scented, healing spices from the East. If I’d done any less, it would be called browsing.
Have online shops been so maltreated, that basic, minimum payment comes across like rescuing a hostage from a basement?
Maybe it only strikes me as odd, because I’m not thankful enough.
When I Uber, I confess it takes a lot to get a five-star review out of me. I think of all the movies Steven Spielberg made which didn’t win any Academy Awards. Films which snarky reviewers only gave two stars. And that’s Spielberg. So, was this Uber ride the equivalent of Raiders of the Lost Ark or that sequel with Shia LaBeouf?
(I’m tempted to say to the Uber driver: “Yeah, it was a five-star review, but four of the stars were black holes, so you couldn’t see them. Too much gravity for light to escape.”)
A five-star review should be for an experience you want to talk about. But if an Uber journey becomes an