Hey Nancy!

 NB> And in the meantime, I note that the keyboard finally arrived...
 NB> was it customs...?

I don't know but given how long it took it was definetly held up somewhere
along the line.

 NB> And for all that, at least it worked when it came... 

It works but leaves much to be desired,  I am blaming Android itself for the
extremely poor keyboard support but am not going to do anything about it seeing
the Android OS isn't anything I feel obligated to in any meaningful way.  Just
for fun I did manage to get replying working and this is the very first
official reply from the tablet using the now crippled keyboard.  Very, very sad
but it does 'work' so ... :::shrugging shoulders:::

Life is good,
Maurice

... Cybertoasts of note:
    2020-11-05 is 142 days from now and falls on a Thursday.
    2021-01-01 is 199 days from now and falls on a Friday.
--- GNU bash, version 5.0.17(1)-release (aarch64-unknown-linux-android)