137 17 April 2025
Dear All - Thank you all once again for the sustained interest in all this old stuff. And another thank you to those of you who have been bidding on items listed on eBay. I've had a bit of a struggle with eBay recently because of their strenuous efforts to try and promote their so-called "Simple Delivery" system.When they first introduced it they were so keen that they thought it was OK to automatically override postage preference settings in favour of their new system. I got caught out by this and found that once the auction had finished there was no way I could revert to my own chosen method. I was told that the only way was to cancel the order and had to arrange with the buyer outside eBay to complete the transaction privately. I felt a bit miffed because eBay gave the impression that I was at fault for not being more vigilant and noticing that their automation had changed my settings. In fact, although they offer the opportunity to set their system as the default for all listings they do not offer the same option for the seller's own choice ! So now, even though I use the previous listing each time as a template, I find that I have to repeatedly reset the postage choice again and again. So please be aware if any of you do bid on an item to be careful to check what eBay are asking you to pay for and if they are trying to use their "Simple Delivery" then please stop the process and contact me to try and sort it. I have tried to explain to them that the reason it is not practical for me to use their system is that they have not thought through the implications of having to carry out proper packing appropriate to the nature of the items and make no allowance for taking account of the cost of the packaging materials etc. An additional irritation has been that on April first all email notifications of confirmation of listing, sales, or payment suddenly stopped. Finally managed to correct that but it seemed the notification settings on my account had been reversed ... BUT NOT BY ME ! If they thought it was a good April Fool joke I'm afraid I did not appreciate it even though I have a reasonably robust sense of humour. There's been a bit of a pause in listings because I am coming to the end of the stuff from the GLOSSARY sequence in Episode 5 and came across the animation of the planetary spheres. There are 28 positions in this animation and I spent a while pondering the best way to approach this. I didn't think it likely that there would be 28 people who might be interested in a single piece. It also didn't feel right to put all 28 as one item as it seems unlikely that anyone would contemplate displaying all 28 positions. So I have decided to compromise by splitting the animation into 7 groups of 4 so that each group has a flavour of the overall motion. 
I am also including with each group an A3 digital print that encompasses all 28 positions of the animation such that each group of 4 is represented in one of the 7 columns of images on the print. 
After these 7 listings there will be a couple of bits from the diagram sequence done by Dave Hall explaining how to afford the huge cost of a meal at Milliways and maybe a couple of storyboards and dope sheets. Then I'm afraid I need to take a pause for a while as I have outside maintenance jobs queueing up and in my dotage I don't think I can sustain the required pace of both requirements simultaneously ! All items listed on eBay are available via the following link and I hope gradually to build an archive of all artwork that has been listed since 2010. https://www.rodlord.com/PAGES/H2G2s/ebay.html Very best wishes to you All - Rod To be taken off the mailing list please reply with REMOVE in the subject or content. |