Rick's b.log - entry 2025/09/24

The parcel that never was

I ordered some fizzy vitamin pills (with caffeine) from Amazon. I get this from them because it is about ten euros from Amazon, and over fifteen for the exact same thing at my local chemist.

It was scheduled, via Colis Privé, to get here today, but was actually out for delivery and delivered to my letterbox yesterday.

Only it wasn't.

Since I'm a nerd, I know that my letterbox was opened at exactly 13:36 and fifty seconds, and closed two seconds later after a copy of Que Choisir magazine and some junk mail had been placed into the box.
And I know that was La Poste who visited at that time because here is my friendly postwoman, one second prior to opening my postbox to pop the stuff into it.

Post is here!

I have two cameras covering the front and the post box. And while they record quite a lot, every tree wobble counts as "movement", it was marked on the Amazon tracing that the parcel was delivered at 13:21.

Here is the view from the other camera. It records "a minute" from motion activation. One minute from 13:18 to 13:19, and two minutes from 13:21 to 13:23. Now, you might be saying "Maybe the clocks aren't entirely accurate? Maybe it took some time to sync?". Fair enough, it's a valid question. So I can tell you that the trigger prior to that was one minute from 12:52½ to 12:53½. It's basically when the sun came out and the shadows danced. That's what was setting it off. Not anybody's presence.
It sucks that there's an actual recording at the time in question, but hey, I can't control the sun. I can, however, save that recording and say "See? Nothing".

Evidence that NO parcel came near at that time.

Normally Amazon asks you to give it 24 hours because maybe it was delivered to a neighbour by mistake? I got in touch and pointed out that not only do I have cameras to know what goes on around here, but I'm the only place with this name (it's a "lieu-dit" ("place called") in French) and my nearest neighbours are half a kilometre up the access lane. No, I don't know them. I wave as I go by, they wave back, that's the extent of our interactions.

So Amazon refunded me. Sort of. I said since I really wanted this I was just going to order it again, so a gift token would suffice, they didn't need to actually refund refund.
So they did that.
And I ordered it again yesterday night. It's a shame there was no method to "okay, I'll just drop a re-order into the queue for you" but, well, it wasn't exactly arduous.

So the status now is that it is supposed to be here tomorrow, it hasn't been dispatched yet, and I have a tracking number that's a number, a letter, and a bunch more numbers. That's something La Poste (Colissimo or Chronopost). I did specifically ask, once again, if they could nudge their system into sending stuff by Colissimo and the post woman in her little white van will pop round on the daily circle. I really don't care if it takes an extra day that way, it'll be a lot less hassle than - and let's face it - some subcontracted driver probably took one look at the address on Google Maps and was like "screw that". Either that or he is utterly incapable of understanding addresses; though nothing has turned up, none of the neighbours came by. Somebody, I guess, has some vitamin pills. Well, enjoy them. It's soon to be flu season and all the wheezing/sneezing that entails so get your body's immune system in shape.
As for me, I just hope to every God I know the name of that Amazon aren't dumb enough to sent it by Chronopost...because they don't even bother most of the time. They'll just leave it at some random collection point and say "Nobody was home" which is utter bollocks and quite infuriating. In point of fact, I think I'd better go plug my car in in case I need to go pick this up from who-knows-where tomorrow.

That, by the way, is the downside of living remotely. People that claim to handle parcels look at the address and consider it "not viable" and will either make up "it got mislaid" or "your address is incomplete" excuses to buy some time until they have some other parcels in the area, or they'll just claim nobody was home even though Amazon doesn't (normally) require a signature and leave it at the collection point of the driver's choosing, which may not be the one closest to you like they're supposed to.
At any rate, they never go to Amazon and say "we let you down, we failed to deliver the parcel at the time you promised because we're shit". No, it's always, somehow, the customer's fault. Utter barefaced lies.

Let's see how/what/if turns up tomorrow.

And, you know what, if they don't get it out the door in time and Colissimo (my nice post woman) drops it in the box in Friday, that's so not the end of the world.
It getting here is the important point, and clearly that's where the problem lies and what needs to be looked into. I understand that Amazon has opened an inquiry with the carrier, but... yeah... it'll probably be a bunch of half-arsed "wasn't me guv, lessons will be learned, blah blah bloody blah" excuses. And Amazon will accept that because, well, what's the alternative? France is way too anal about their paperwork to ever have a hope in hell of rolling out drone delivery here. And I'm so far away from any place reasonably populated that it would need a heck of a battery on the thing. So, for now, it's the carriers that can't. <sigh>

UPDATE: As I was writing the bit below, Amazon sent me a notification that it's been dispatched by La Poste. Which I think means it'll make it's way to the post truck. Did they listen to me? If so, brilliant!

Finally my autism has been explained!

But the big thing is the brain. The fuzziness. The ability to give two hundred percent concentration for hours on things that interest me, the complete inability to give even a handful of percent on things that don't interest me, sleep disturbed to the point where my doctor thinks I'm making it up, a desire to pour information and knowledge into my brain (even if I forget most of it), coupled with the fact that I'd rather go to bed hungry than look at three different types of pasta and Just f:-)king decide, Rick, PICK ONE AND F:-)KING COOK IT but no, I can't manage that.
Procrastination is the order of the day. I like writing. Fiction. So I have started dozens of stories, and then abandoned them because they're crap. Well, that's what I think. You may or may not agree. I've also started a bunch of software projects that get left behind because "bored". I'm spectacularly proud of the software that's on the right-hand panel. Not because I think I'm a good coder, but because I managed to get something developed enough that I felt I could offer it to others.
I'd also love to play the piano, but getting the left hand and the right hand doing different things is... yeah... it's called dyspraxia. I have it mildly, but I have it enough that nobody picked me to be on their side in rounders (for non-Brits, that's vaguely like baseball).

And you'll notice that I'm talking about nerdy person things. Because interpersonal relationships? Disaster. Understanding social cues? Disaster. I've been called "weird" enough times in my life that I joke that the first three things I learned to say were mama, dada, and you're weird (for non-Brits, self-deprecating black humour is a national trope - but you might have guessed that reading some of this crap that attempts to pass itself off as a blog).
I had pretty much sussed it out as a child that I was destined to live, and die, alone. Don't feel bad for me, I've had decades to get used to the idea and loneliness isn't really a thing for me. Boredom sometimes is, but that's when I start to get creative and take washing machine controllers apart.

All of this, and a bunch more things that I can't be bothered to go into detail over (like why the hell does my stupid brain seem to be obsessed with counting things? The dumbarse can't even remember the count given the slightest distraction, and god knows everything is a distraction!), I consider myself to be autistic.
Now, note well that this is a self-diagnosis. It isn't a case of "oh, I think it's cool to have a cute label", I don't care about a label, I'd like like to understand my mind a little better. And since I went to a special needs boarding school, funded by the local council, clearly there was enough wrong for them to agree to send me and pick up the tab for it - and not just the AD and the HD as, having done various online tests and read a bunch of stuff (some of which annoyingly contradicts other stuff) it seems that I fall quite a bit more into autism than regular ADHD, though there is obviously some degree of overlap.
I don't get myself professionally tested because, well, because it's bloody expensive. We're looking at upwards of two grand given the pre-assessment tests and then the assessment itself. When you throw in the ADHD, the dyscalculia, and the dyspraxia... Dora wants to know, Can you say "ker-ching?".
So I'd pay all that money for some bloke in a white coat to tell me what I already know. Sorry, but since "a diagnosis" is not going to make any real difference to my life other than helping me explain myself to myself, I can think of many things the money could be spent on that would be a lot more useful. Like driving lessons. Dora also wants to know "Can you say "procrastinate"?. ☺

Now, as a science nerd, always in the back of my mind is the big question WHY?. I feel that a part of it may be because I was born premature and dead, and stayed that way for the first four minutes of my life. I took almost as long to reboot as the Livebox. It was getting to the point where the nursing staff were warning my mother that there may be... some fairly serious issues... but all things considered I think I turned out pretty good.
I also felt that a lot of it was genetic. I know diddly-squat about my father, and that's a stone best left buried, but when reading some of the material it might mention various "autistic traits", some of which I see in myself - obviously - but the eye opener was those "hey, I remember mom doing that" moments. Like, she was always doing weird things with her fingers. Me? I count, when there's nothing else to count. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four... it happens so frequently that I don't even notice I'm doing it most of the time. Apparently things like that are called "stimming". Why? Beats me. That's part of what this is all about. To answer those sorts of questions. All of the Why? questions.

But now, thanks to the American administration and their Glorious Leader Herr Trump, it has finally been explained.

My mummy had an iddy-widdy pain and since she was in the wrong country to think of just trying to pray it away, and since this was decades before people would tell her that all she needs is the right combination of essential oils... she gulped down a paracetamol or two (that's what Americans call "Tylenol", here in France it's "Doliprane").

Because she had a pain. She's left me with an inability to concentrate. She's left me with an inability to get most things done. And she's left me with an inability to form meaningful relationships with anything that doesn't identify as a cat.
Her short term discomfort has ruined my entire life. What a bitch! How dare you! How dare you! How dare you! HOW DARE YOU!

For Fuck's Sake.

No, this isn't a Thalidomide kind of deal. Taking a headache pill during the baby-making process won't ruin it's mind; drinking and smoking probably will, as would gestational exposure to Fox News. There's actually a fair amount of medications that are contra-indicated in case of pregnancy, because yes, some things can upset a pregnancy. By and large this is a known known because medications, when prescribed by real doctors and available on the health service, have to go through all sorts of tests - a ridiculous number of tests. When I left the UK, laser eye surgery was not available on the NHS because its effectiveness had not been suitably proven compared with the very real potential for causing blindness. Sure, you could get it done privately, but on the understanding that you were willing to accept a level of risk that the British health service wasn't. I don't know if it's changed since then, but whatever, that's not the point. The point is that paracetamol is widely used and prescribed as a low level pain blocker. You can get it with codeine for times when your pain is more severe. None of this is a mystery, it's been used for decades. It's behaviour, dosage, effects and level of overdosage, and usual long term use effects are all quite well known. Fœtal damage isn't one of them. The little paper you get in the box will tell you, it can give you rashes. It can make traces of blood appear on the skin. It can mess with your platelets and/or the acidity of your blood plasma. Upset stomach, sudden drop in blood pressure... This is rare but known. Because paracetamol affects the blood, it is advised to seek the advice of a doctor if you have hepatitis. The paper is also exceedingly clear that overdose WILL kill you, and it's a particularly nasty way to go.
What it says for pregnancy and breastfeeding is Ideally consult with your doctor before using this medication, but in case of need this can be taken during pregnancy/breastfeeding, but please take the smallest amount necessary to ease your pain.
That reads, to me, like more of a disclaimer. It's basically saying it's okay in small doses (as long as you don't suffer any of the rare reactions) but don't overdo it; and then they pass the buck to the doctor who will probably say much the same thing; especially given as how paracetamol is the NHS' painkiller of choice for pregnancy.

Drinking, smoking, drugs - those will have a tangible effect of development. The risk of having a problem with the child (not limited to autism) also increases quite a lot the older the woman is (and a link with paracetamol can be found here as older people are more likely to suffer aches and pains and take the pill, but the major factor is age and not the painkiller).

So why are so many people now being labelled autistic when, say, thirty years ago that just didn't happen?

The answer here is not, as Kennedy would say, an "epidemic" of autism. It's not a disease or a plague, and you can't eradicate it as it's literally that our brains are wired up slightly differently. You can't give a pill to fix that, just like you can't give a pill to 'cure' left-handedness or myopia.
You can, sometimes, give a pill to help with concentration in cases of ADHD. But, just know, stuffing a child full of amphetamines fixes one problem by creating another (side note: yes, that's what Adderall is).

There are three main factors in the sharp increase in children being diagnosed as autistic these days.

• One: Transferring autism from being a distinct clinical diagnosis of a fairly severe condition to being a "spectrum" condition because, as it turns out, there's no "this or that". There's no "normal or broken". There's a lot of nuance in between. I'm fully able to function by myself and independently, but I am clearly not "normal" as random people have been reminding me for the fifty one years of my existence.
• Two: Much better awareness. Back in the '80s, "autistic" was a barely known concept and it was often seen as a polite word for "retarded" (that, in itself, is now considered a slur). Many autistic people are actually kind of smart, but sometimes in annoying ways and lacking the social understanding to realise that if you know the subject better than the teacher, do NOT keep correcting them. They won't say "oh, that autistic kid is so good at this subject", they will say "shut up you damned brat".
• Three: Three is what you get when you add one and two. So combine a greater understanding of what autism is and a greater awareness of it being a thing, and it'll be more easily diagnosed these days compared to in the past.

Let me give you an anecdote. I may have mentioned this before, but I'll cover it again. When I was in junior school, I wanted to know stuff. The teacher would cover something, and then want to move on to cover something else. It's like dipping a toe in different puddles when I would rather completely jump in one puddle. So I'd ask questions. I'd be told to shut up. In the end that teacher had enough of me and made me sit at the back of the room facing the wall and not to take part in the lesson in any way. I did that for a few days, but it's both frustrating and boring. So at break time I'd wander off, by myself, down the road to the local library. And I'd just quietly sit in the corner reading stuff. After a little while of that, mom would drop me off at school and I'd just sort of hang around until she'd gone and then I'd wander down to the library myself. I told them what had happened so they kept an eye on me. One of the women made an extra sandwich and shared her lunch with me. I would imagine they got in touch with the school, and probably had an earful about what a horrid child I was... juxtaposed with this quiet child reading late-teen books as an eight year old, clearly with an interest in science and psychology (though I preferred the general psychology books because, good god, even as an adult I can't get my head around half of what Carl Jung was on about).

This all blew up one day when my mom came to get me early for something, I don't know what. The school? No idea where I was. The teacher? Didn't know, didn't care. The school tried to portray me as this massive truant, which mom wasn't having given that I would go home and tell her all about the cool things I'd learned. Only, I learned them at the library, because libraries are cool in a way that classrooms are not. She insisted on have school calling the police to start looking for me. The school didn't want to but mom wasn't having it. Plus, being within range of the Broadmoor emergency siren system, missing children did get taken seriously.

I was eventually located and mom was wise enough to stay back and fume silently while an increasingly shocked policewoman asked me a bunch of questions. In literally no time at all I was assigned a social worker, had meetings with child psychologists in this incredibly drab grey concrete monstrosity in Aldershot (which I think is now a cinema or something?). I was pulled from that teacher's class and stuck in with some older kids and a much nicer teacher (though, I'm not sure if she was just a nicer person or if she was nicer to me because social services put the fear of god into that place). I'd like to think that horrible teacher lost her job, but my fate for her is a far better one. I forgot her. Completely. I can tell the story because I lived it and I remember it. But her? If I have to picture her, I see the face of Margaret Thatcher (as she was in those days). Her real face? Gone. Her name? Gone. I don't remember her as a horrible bitch, I don't remember her at all.

Maybe, with more awareness of autism and autistic traits, not only would it have been picked up sooner but I may have been streamed into an education that better suited my learning style. In the 80s the choice in normal schools was either "what everyone does" or "the remove". The remove is where the failing children go to get the minimum education necessary to satisfy the legal obligation.
As much as governments want to push for a unified identikit curriculum because it is easier to manage, the fact is that different children learn and respond in different ways. We aren't all the same. The fact that their kids probably went to a public school rather than the comp up the road pretty much makes my entire point.
Oh, and if you're not a Brit - public school is not public, it's private, but private school is something else, and may sometimes be called an independent school. All public schools are private schools, but not all private schools are public schools, and none of them are state schools. This makes perfect sense to a Brit, so I'll translate it for you: It's weird and elitist, but are we even remotely surprised?

Suffice to say, if your child is autistic, it wasn't the paracetamol you probably don't even remember taking.
Likewise, since this is the Republicans we're talking about, let me just throw in that if your child is gay, it's not because they are haunted by demons. The demons are the ones thinking that gayness can be "converted" or "cured". The demons are the ones holding the Bible and screaming about how people who aren't them are evil and responsible for all the bad things in the world. The demons are the ones who think they have the right to control what happens in a uterus that is not their own (or that they don't even have). The demons are the ones running that country.

There is, actually, a "cure" for homosexuality, just as there is one for autism, and a few other things besides.

It's called acceptance.
Maybe try it?

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jgh, 24th September 2025, 21:55

I did four months doing courier deliveries back during The Big Sniffle, and I took not one parcel back because I couldn't find a destination. I used local council planning websites to do a geosearch on the address, sometimes that would just "pin" a vague area so oldmaps.co.uk (when it still existed) to search out named buildings, getting out and physically walking up and down the street actually looking at house names/numbers. Just pure plain basic normal common sense. The hardest one was a cluster of farm buildings just off the A616, but a simple search of OldMaps found it.    The only parcels I took back to the depot were when they were too big for a letterbox, and nobody was at home, and after I got told off for leaving them with a neighbour.

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