Oldspaper

I'm getting increasingly annoyed with our newspaperwallah, Mr Murgaonkar. Every day he delivers the Bombay edition of the Indian Express sometime between 8 and 9pm. I mean, what is the point of that? I already know the news by then, and anyway I can't be bothered to read it - we're usually about to have dinner and then afterwards we chat and wash up and kill cockroaches and do other household tasks and then it's time to go to bed. I end up reading the paper the following morning at breakfast and try to pretend that it's new news - even though I've already known for at least 20 hours that, for example, Rahul Mahajan is a certified cokehead. Grrr.

I wouldn't mind, but sometimes Mr Murgaonkar doesn't deliver the paper at all, for reasons that are not clear, even to him. I tried asking him about it once and he just muttered that there weren't any newspapers that day or something. Ri-i-ght. You know, I wouldn't mind so much except that we hardly ever get a paper on a Sunday - which is the best day of the week for the Express and the only day that I would actually have time to sit down and and enjoy a paper.

Yesterday, he delivered a bill. I don't think he's bothered to deduct the price of the six copies of the paper we didn't receive (we've had a Sunday paper once in the last month).

Today, we got another note. I think I understand now. Mr Murgaonkar is holding our papers to ransom:

Dear Madam/Sir

Please give me Rs 1,000 only.

Please Madem
V.V. Urgent.

Alright, it doesn't actually explicitly say that harm will come to any copies of the Sunday Express unless we pay but I think you'll agree the implications of that note are clear.

Bastard.