My busy morning.

So, it turns out when Mitch goes away I revert to my usual working hours which are staying up late and getting up early as a consequence of writing. Or, burning the candle at both ends as my dad would tell me when I was a lad staying up watching tv or reading then getting up early and doing a paper round at the age of 12. So what does this all mean? Not much, but I was up late reading and trying to write Nigerian post-colonial monetary history last night and got up early this morning to organise collecting data on Hong Kong sterling holdings from the Bank of England. Then I got a buzz at the door - I answered (don't worry this is going somewhere, honest) to be told I had a delivery! That was a nice surprise. The guy asked what floor I was on and I told him the top (it's a 4 story building so not too high) to which he replied, and I quote, 'we don't do stairs'. Pardon? 'We don't do stairs, we're not insured'. So yes, that delivery charge I paid for didn't actually include the package getting delivered to the door. I would swear but I'm trying not to be to potty mouthed in case my in-laws are reading. (For swearing I suggest go here, here (sadly departed, but still makes me laugh) and here.) They all do swearing as I probably would if I wasn't trying to keep it clean.

So anyway yes, they don't do stairs. Because they're not insured. What is this? America? A place where suddenly even delivery men are considered so potentially litigious that they no longer have to walk up stairs? Ridiculous. And before I'm (perhaps correctly) accused of indolence, this is what I ended up carting upstairs (flat-packed) and then putting together:



I'm off to the Bank of England now. At least there they'll bring the folders I want to look at to me. I wonder how long it is until archivists are considered so potentially litigious that they'll be banned from that on insurance grounds?