Mark Andrews on Saturday: Meghan's birthday present, waste of Amazonian proportions, and Sky hits the heights
Just when you think you have seen it all, when people are still trying to work out the Byzantine regulations surrounding foreign travel, a press release arrives for a 'Britain's first buy now, pay later travel agent'.
Don't people save up for anything these days? It's not as if there's been much to spend your money on over the past 18 months.
* * *
Many happy returns to Meghan Markle, who celebrated her 40th birthday this week by making a video with Melissa McCarthy (me neither) to announce that she and 40 of her 'friends' would each give 40 minutes of their time 'mentoring' women who have been laid off from their work during the pandemic.
Is that what people do these days? When I was 40 I had a night down the pub.
Certainly, losing your job is no laughing matter, but why does it have to become yet another gender issue? I'm sure there are plenty of out-of-work male car workers from Detroit, and coal miners from Pennsylvania – not to mention those vitally important 'gender neutral' folk – who would also love nothing more than a 40-minute pep talk from a woke wellness bore about how a positive mental approach will soon get them back in the factory.
Talking of which, when do Meghan and Harry go back to work?
* * *
Internet retailer Amazon has, quite rightly, been subjected to considerable public opprobrium for the obscene waste at its warehouses, with reports of perfectly good merchandise being sent to landfill simply because nobody has bought it.
But I can see one good thing to come out of all this. Next time you get a call from a scammer purporting to be from Amazon, please make your feelings known to them about this very important issue, and ask them what the company is going to do about. I suspect they will hang up very quickly.
* * *
Congratulations to Sky Brown for her bronze in the Olympics. To win an Olympic medal at the age of 13 is a truly remarkable achievement.
But am I the only one to wonder how skateboarding qualifies as an Olympic sport? It makes you wonder what's coming next. Freestyle graffiti? Synchronised cider-swigging on the steps of the newsagents? Sitting in an old Vauxhall Corsa playing loud music?
