Papers Late This Morning - part the first

We have two main deliveries of papers and one smaller delivery of local Oxford papers. These usually arrive between 0430 and 0445. When they don’t, the problems begin. Late papers are usually down to:-
Breakdowns (punctures etc)
Accidents (the van drivers are like mad ferrets)
Traffic jams (due to other mad ferrets hitting each other !!)
Drivers getting lost (being as how they start at 0200 they don’t tend to last long – either totally peed off by the unsociable hours or a combination of a, b, and c above)
Very rarely - late papers from the printers (usually due to things like "hold the front page" for Presidential elections etc)
Acts of God (fire, flood, snow, plagues of locusts etc. Mad ferret drivers being smitten by a vengeful God- that’s their excuse any way)
So there we are this AM – both the main suppliers turned up, but the Weekly Oxford Times had not . Me and Jim – the other poor sod who has to get up and do the papers decided to carry on and do up the rounds without the Oxford Times. (As up until recently this weekly had been delivered on a Thursday afternoon and not put up on the rounds till Friday). We have the rounds done by about 0600 for me to load me van and be off by 0610. The local hotel rings at 0600 for their order and this is usually the last on the van.