h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Take your clingfilm roll and hold it reasonably firmly at the end furthest from you. Lightly pull out the length of clingfilm you require. Note: this must be at least a foot - any less will get "wrapping" and you'll have to start again. With one quick (almost flick) of the wrist tear your strip of clingfilm and continue your arm's motion until it is behind you. Turn with your arm or you will be in pain. You will now have a sheet of clingfilm in your grubby mitt that is not a little ball.

Note:

1. Do not tear slowly or the clingfilm will stick to itself.
2. Do not try this with whole rolls or you will be wrapped in clingfilm, and unless you have airholes this is not a nice experience.
3. Ignore the whole thing and just use plastic containers instead.

I always find it best to apply clingfilm in the same way nurses apply tubigrip finger bandages. Apply the roll of clingfilm (without box) to the thing to be wrapped. Starting with an edge, move the clingfilm around the object until at least one layer is acheived and each end is one whole side away from the other. Place a thumb on the clingfilm nearest the roll, hold the roll to immobilise the removal of further film and tug hard, using the thumb to break the material.

This reminds me of what happens here to my home delivered newspaper.
It is rolled and wrapped in something not entirely disimilar to clingfilm.
It even has a printed bit showing a thumb so you know to open it with a thumb!!
BUT you have to find the end of the cling film in order to unroll. Like you do with a cling wrapped sandwich!!
The bit where you have two overlapping thumbs is supposed to be where you start.
Umm are you following me so far?
You then have to do the cling film roll on in reverse ie carefully peel the film back but along the whole width of the rolled newspaper at the same time OR you end up with torn middle bits, completely glued together end bits and a strange screaming noise coming out of your mouth

Newspapers should not be constrained nor protected by waterproof things if they're being delivered. Thusly when it rains, the people getting the paper see that the paper is damp and make to complain only to be deterred by the thought that the poor young thing who delivered it for a pittance must be soaking as well. At least, this is what I hoped people would realise delivering stuff for seven years in a damp village on the east coast of the UK. I know that American newspapers are rolled up and thrown into the garden rather than pushed through the letterbox; this would necessitate waterproofing were it ever to rain in America, which it does not. Mayhap it is also stops dogs slavering over the delivered 'paper. People with dogs should instead receive a chewed and knackered newspaper to show them that it is foolish to keep a dog.

I actually hate having the newspaper rolled in plastic, (they are hard to read when they stay rolled even when de-plasticed.
The edges get all mangled in the rolling machines too.
but they tend to throw them into the garden here too.
Unfortunately we don't get mail delivered through the front door as you do in lots of the UK.
I guess it's because most of our houses are set back from the street more.
Only a few inner urban areas have front doors on the street.
Inner urban living is not usual in Australia as there has always been so much land to build on
The proverbial Quarter acre block contributed to the "urban sprawl"
I don't have a dog!!
This is starting to change however and more high rise apartments and town houses are being built in the central city areas.
I think we'll still be forced to have our papers wrpped

Does the spread-outness of the building also mean that newsagents are too far away to walk to? My sister went to America to do Bunac a few years ago and found that the family she stayed with had a twenty-mile drive to the nearest equivalent of a corner shop. Apparently Australia has drive-through off-licences, implying that many things are, for many people, distant. What you ought to do to make the whole thing more enjoyable is to have a bucket thing in the spot in the garden where the 'paper usually lands. Whenever a direct hit is scored, award your delivery person an extra A$1 tip or something. Congratulations on not having a dog. Get a instead as they don't leave hairs all over the carpet. Eventually no-one on earth will keep a dog, forcing those evil gits who invented dog breath-freshening tablets to pack up and go home.

Most people, including me, could walk or drive within 10 mins to a newsagent or general store or Milk bar (as they are mostly known)
There are of course other people in Australia who have to drive for many hours for such simple pleasures, however they are in the minority.
Drive through off-licences (known as Bottle Shops) are a product of high car use and general laziness!!
I drive to buy my wine as I am usually buying more than a couple of bottles at a time it is easier to carry them in the car.
Drive through is a more convenient option than trying to find a car parking space in many areas.
"Slabs" of beer are also difficult to carry. What do You do if you buy more than just a few bottles?

Love the bucket idea.
This however would spoil my morning game of find the newspaper in the bushes!!

Drive-through things would indeed be a good idea if they didn't mean that a mass of cars were all parked in the same place, spurting forth noxious fumes. Drive-throughs should be constructed so that when in the line, people could turn off the engine and roll down a small incline past the service window. Either that or someone should take seriously my invention of a semi-pedal-powered car. When moving forward very slowly (eg at a junction, in a contraflow or in a drive-through) the engine could be turned off and the car moved the small amount required by means of some pedals. Besides lowering the level of CO pumped put into the face of the cyclist behind the car, this would prevent habitual car-drivers from becoming the lardarsed bloaters they are soon certain to be. It'd also up their level of ß-endorphins and make them less dangerously cranky on the road. The pedals could also be used to translate pedalling speed to roadspeed, so that people would have to concentrate on what they're doing rather than just
extend their foot and go to sleep. With the vast amounts of electronics present in modern cars it wouldn't be too much trouble to extend them to give the car the ability to disengage and switch off the engine when it wasn't needed, at the same time issuing a command to the driver that it's not going to be turned on again until speeds of above 5mph are reached. I'll stop now as I could go on complaining about cars and their drivers until I die from malnutrition.

I have a twenty mile drive to the nearest bushes. I am very glad my newspaper delivery guy doesn't throw mine in the bushes, but places them neatly on the sand outside my door.