Something strange has happened in the realm of postal
delivery. I came home from work a few days ago and found a brown envelope lying
on the kitchen worktop in the spot where I and my fellow residents always leave
items of mail for each other if they're too big to fit in our pigeonholes. I
opened it up to find the magazine you see in the illustration. There was no covering
letter or inner packaging; nothing to explain to me why it had been dispatched
and by whom. The envelope was unmarked, yet my name and address had been
printed not handwritten. The magazine, New
Humanist, is an old one dating back to 1885 and focuses on culture, news,
philosophy and science from an atheo-skeptical perspective. It is a quarterly and
this is the latest one, autumn 2025. It has had a number of publishers over the
course of its long history and currently it is being brought out by Humanists
UK. The current issue centres on space exploration and has articles about it
from a number of authors. I only recognize one of the names, Michael Rosen, and
that surprises me; I wasn't aware he was involved. I actually met Michael Rosen
when I was about nine years old because he visited my school. He wrote a series
of humourous children's poetry books that I very much enjoyed such as Mind Your Own Business and You Tell Me.
What's weird is... I never ordered this! It's not the kind
of thing I normally read. I am not a Humanists UK member and am not on their
national mailing list. I am only on the list for the local group because I
attended their inaugural public meeting, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/10/oxford-humanists-launch-event.html.
I did not pay for this issue. There are only two mundane possibilities that
come to mind. This might be a promotional one-off copy sent to everybody on the
list in the hope that we will buy more of them. Alternatively it could be a
troll making fun of me. They've done this sort of thing before; in fact there
are a number of fake accounts in my name on everything from Grinder to Filipina
maid agencies. If so then this is worrying because they have clearly found out
my home address. What other pranks do they have planned for me? This is not the
first time I've experienced bizarre letterbox conundrums, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/04/something-strange-is-going-on.html
and: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/04/antichrist-book-livestream.html.
I suppose I will have to wait and see if the winter issue gets sent to me as
well in three months. I don't think they should bother. I have read some of
this issue and was not impressed with it. I certainly won't be subscribing.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/political-correctness-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/skeptics-portal.html.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/political-correctness-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/skeptics-portal.html.
4 comments:
Dating back to 1885!? Is it possible it is from one of Gareth's family, or could it be from a passive aggressive "ex" trying to tell you something....definitely someone or somewhere you have given your address to. Don't think its a hacker if they went to all the trouble of doing that you would more than likely have been greeted with a turd not a strange historic magazine methinks!
Yes, I suppose this is out of character for a troll. Unless it is somebody with a more immediate kind of personal grudge.
Could it not be something as simple as the local group passing its mailing list on to the national organisation? Depending on the relationship between the two they may not even be breaking data protection laws by doing that.
Unlike the fake accounts it doesn't seem malicious enough to be a troll and at the end of the day it's at their expense and not yours.
Yes, MT. That's most likely. I don't think it's a breach so long as it's within the organization.
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