This ‘cradle-Catholic’ sounds off about dreary, dreary ‘good news’

I’m sitting here in the kitchen at my aunt’s in deepest, darkest Gascony just about to have my second bowel of milky coffee, having risen from my sick bed briefly after three days of a bad cold. But that isn’t the point of this ramble (or as Donny Trump would have it this ‘weave’).

My aunt, 93 and not in the best of health, is sitting across from me waiting for her daily late-morning visit from a nurse. At breakfast and until just now she was listening to a Sunday morning mass being broadcast on the radio (or as I am now slowly obliged to call it, ‘the wireless’).

This surprised me, as although she is, like me, a ‘cradle-Catholic’ and was educated by nuns, she had - again like me - long, long ago escaped the snares of the left-foot establishment and declared herself an atheist.

But that isn’t the point of this ‘weave’, either.

The point is this: WHY are christian hymns and songs - well, let me be fair, WHITE christian hymns and songs - of every denomination, from RCs to Plymouth Maniacs to bells ‘n smells Anglicans, so sodding DREARY? It’s always like walking in the rain with no coat and nowhere to go. Yes, that cheerful.

On a related note, why does preaching the ‘good news’, ostensibly intended to cheer folk up, rely so heavily on doom, inducing fear and dread, restrictions, taboos, frightening young children and a kind of incomprehensible voodoo bollocks?

My favourite piece of bollocks ‘The Trinity’, explained to uncomprehending seven-year-olds as ‘three persons in one god’ ( and NO, it’s NOT three gods, just three persons in one god), is a case in point.

Of course, little ones are not supposed to understand, just accept, repeat and believe and shut the fuck up (as I was when young and now and then I queried this ‘n that). Once - when I was 17 - I queried the ‘virgin birth’.

My headmaster at the time who also gave us sixth-formers religious instruction, an Irishman called Webster Wilson (who sadly was a figure of fun at the OS, but who took me for German and I rather liked him and with whom I got on well), asked me:

‘Do you believe God created the world and the laws of nature, Powell?’ Yes, I told him, tho even by then I didn’t. ‘Well,’ said Mr Wilson, ‘he can also break em then, can’t he!’

As I say total bollocks. Yes, there are certainly more sophisticated christian apologists, but if you are apologising and defending bollocks, it’s still bollocks.

NB the piccy is of my second bowl of coffee. I was delayed posting the piccy and one or two ‘readers’ have arrived early. Forgive me, you are not going off your head – leave that to me – but my shortcoming.

Shysters anonymous, or how in just over three decades the ‘information superhighway’, the ‘democratising force to end all ‘democratising force’ has succumbed to simply parting you from your money. Greed – as always – regains the throne

I have been very lax about posting to this blog and intend to try to do so more regularly. There is much I want to comment on, not least the narcissistic and rather stupid crook Donald Trump and the real danger he poses to the democracy we know as the United States. However, that is a large topic and needs a great deal of thought, so to kick off my resurrection of my blog, here is an open letter to eBay . . .

Like pretty much every other online retailer - though the bigger and richer the company, the worse this problem is (so you, too, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft etc, who are now so big, one pissed-off customer more or less, who fucking cares).

I want to get in touch with eBay about an issue, but it is nigh-on impossible to do so. Instead I (and others, too) am cycled through the same routine: what is it about? If it is not about any of the topics listed - selling, payments, feedback etc - it’s pretty much ‘go fuck yourself, we don’t want to talk to you.

It is literally going round in a circle, and I don’t doubt many just give up - after all they are ‘just customers’ so why should eBay give a flying fuck.

Yes, listing topics is often more efficient and saves both time and money, both for eBay and the ‘customer’. But that is not always the case. Yet though eBay will also know that, the last thing they want is to be bothered by us poor schmucks who are are worth just one thing to eBay: money. Once they have our money, it’s ‘go fuck yourself’.

Above I have listed other offenders, but there is no ‘safety in numbers’. Just because many ‘big’ tech firms behave like that and essentially treat their customers ‘sheep to be sheared’ doesn’t excuse any of them.

My issue today is ‘Complete savings’: every time I buy something on eBay, I am offered ‘money back’, in this case £20.97 ‘back’ on a £281 purchase.

But this is a con and as close to a legal scam as eBay’ and Complete Savings’ lawyers will allow.

You don’t get any money back unless you buy more stuff: so to ‘save’ money you have to spend even more money. Neat, though just for shysters like Complete Savings, not for us, the customer.

But even worse, Complete Savings charge you £18 a month, directly debited from your credit card account, simply to be ‘on its books’ whether you choose to use its service or not.

So I wanted to get myself removed from that programme which pops up every time I buy something, hence why I wanted to get in touch with eBay.

But among their list of topics is there listed ‘Get yourself off hooks of one or our legally crooked partners’? What do you think? Is there listed ‘How to stop yourself being targeted by greedy shysters with whom we do business? What do you think.

Yes, you can opt not to join up, but I wonder how many elderly or rather inattentive shoppers sign up thinking ‘this might be a good thing’? But it is not ‘a good thing’ - wwell only for Complete Savings.

Remember, eBay, we ARE your income: without us you are nowhere. So take your finger out and stop dealing with crooks.

NB And even when you raise an issue - challenging feedback, say - no thinking human is ever involved. Matters are ‘decided’ by an algorithm. I came up against that problems when some shyster, nasty seller decided in revenge to leave me negative feedback, destroying my 100% excellent status. The algorithm decided not to remove it, but I pushed the issue and finally got to speak to someone on the phone, though it took several calls and it was removed. However this was at least ten years ago when there was still human contact apparently. Now . . .