Back in happier times when everything was made in Britain

RAB MCNEILL THE PERILS OF ONLINE SHOPPING...AND THE JOYS OF HIBERNATION

IS anyone else fed up of Amazon? A sea of stern faces stares back and shouts: “No!” All right, then. It’s just me, as usual. You say: “Why are you fed up with Amazon, Rab? It’s brilliant, ken?” That is a good point, well put. All the same, I’m in a moanie mood and intend saying naught for your comfort

Firstly, riddle me this: can you buy anything on Amazon these days that doesn’t come from China? It’s not just that everything is made in China, it’s often dispatched from China.

You order something and, a week later, it hasn’t arrived so you check your order and find a delivery date four or five weeks away. I know

China is quite distant, but still can’t get my head round why anything dispatched should take so long. What delivery method are they using? Panda? Camel?

I also know that “Amazon” is a marketplace for thousands of companies. How it became the sole, entire online marketplace is anybody’s guess. But there it is. And there are your goods: a continent away. This seems particularly to be the case when you order from companies with “UK” in the name – a deliberate ruse or scam, presumably. Even where a company is Britlandbased, my guess is that they themselves are ordering from China before passing the goods on to you.

I should say that I’ve nothing against China, apart from the fact that it is evil, so let me highlight another new trick on Amazon, concerning delivery estimates in general. Recently, I ordered a Syphilis Self-Treatment Kit, recommended by colleagues here at The Herald.

It was on Prime, which I subscribe to, and was happy enough that the next-day service had a delivery date a week hence. Whence, after a week, I went back to check my order, this had been changed to a month. And when I checked the item on sale again, they were still telling punters it was a week.

I don’t usually leave reviews, as I dislike being useful, but decided I should point this out to folks, particularly as the delivery date was now beyond Christmas. Amazon refused to print my warning about delivery times, which was rich since half their informative and educational reviews consist of folk saying: “Item arrived on time.”

At least these are better than many others. “I bought this as a gift so cannot say how good or bad it is.” “I have not taken this out of the box yet, but I’m sure it works brilliantly. “Thanks to this cream, I am now free of halitosis and dating again.” “I was appalled that this treatment had not been tested on animals.”

Having formed a mob of one to put the boot into Amazon, let me get in one more kick: they’ve apparently changed the easy return system. Until recently they refunded you right away. Now they make you go through hoops. When I tried to return a set of “Nasa-approved testicle reducers” (may contain nuts), I was told to take it to the local courier depot. Small problem: there isn’t one.

You also had to print out a label for which, according to my calculations, you need a printer, and these never have any ink in them, even after you’ve just put ink in them. On this occasion, too, the cost of the ink was greater than the cost of the item.

Well, I have raised a number of urgent issues here, important not just for my testicles, but for the crock of bollocks that is the British economy, since it’s abundantly clear that everything is now made in China.

I wish we could return to the past when everything was “Made in Britain”, and you just walked down to the local newsagent or grocer for your embarrassing unguents, obscure philosophy tomes and Swedish prog rock CDs from the 1970s.

There, a chap in brown overalls, with a pencil behind his ear and immaculately Brylcreemed hair, would say: “If you will just take a seat, sir. I will bring these items to you in a jiffy.” Happy days.

Sleeping it off

BEING forced to live in the present day, rather than in the excellent past, I’d jump at the chance to hibernate so that the hell of contemporary existence could just pass me by. But, hey, maybe that’s just me.

According to scientists in Greece and Spain, humans in ancient times may have slept for months to survive atrocious winters. Alaskan boffins, meanwhile, believe the deep state of stasis could help people with heart conditions, and are hopeful that drugs could be produced to induce human hibernation.

Gimme, gimme! To me, just being alive is a debilitating heart condition. Also, I’d probably hibernate in summer when the appalling, socalled sun makes everything too hot, tourists make much of Scotland uninhabitable, and petrol-headed horticulturalists assault the earlobes with their never-ending racket.

Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to wake up after several months, hoping that, in the meantime, everything had stopped being so rubbish?

Yes, I think I see a fundamental flaw in my plan.