Artist Puts Royal Mail to the Test

[johnnyp]

http://www.nowpublic.com/strange/artist ... -mail-test


by jordan | October 12, 2008 at 12:18 pm | 13 views | 1 comment


by ESOX LUCIUS
An art student guaged just how far Glasgow's postal workers would go to get a letter to the right address. The answer: very far. These postal workers were the Michael Scofields of the mail, delivering 120 out of 130 letters addressed only with a series of increasingly-obscure puzzles.


But wait. there's more. Turns out that this behavior runs in Ms. Russell's family.

To put them to the test she concealed the addresses of 130 letters to herself in a series of increasingly complex puzzles and ciphers. Among the disguises she employed were dot-to-dot drawings, anagrams and cartoons. The answer, it seems, was very far indeed. Amazingly, only 10 failed to complete their journey back to her.

In another pleasing twist to the story, Ms Russell was unwittingly resurrecting a family tradition first begun by her great-great grandfather Henry Ponsonby, a private secretary to Queen Victoria and a veteran of the Crimean War. This eminent forebear embellished letters to his children at Eton with a series of illustrations in which he concealed the school's address. It was a family quirk continued by his son, Arthur Ponsonby, a pacifist who went on to be Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside before his elevation to the House of Lords.


Source: independent.co.uk




Ms Russell, 31, who now works from a studio in Wapping, east London, confesses that she had no idea her family had preceded her when it came to teasing the postman. She also admits she is no great letter writer, preferring to communicate by email: all the envelopes she sent contained nothing but blank sheets of paper.
Source: independent.co.uk

[Barry Trotter]

the problem for myself is this. Eventually postmen will get tired of people sending deliberate puzzles and riddles to test them that will mean the genuine people who dont know or cannot remember an address and are hoping the postmans knowledge of his customers can help,will loose out. well done to the posties who worked out this foolish womans puzzles.

[norbert]

the problem for myself is this. Eventually postmen will get tired of people sending deliberate puzzles and riddles to test them that will mean the genuine people who dont know or cannot remember an address and are hoping the postmans knowledge of his customers can help,will loose out. well done to the posties who worked out this foolish womans puzzles.

exactly the xmas card from Auntie Joan to Auntie Nellie with a vague addresss - there is people with local knowledge - we've all done it but if you wanted to solve riddles and puzzles you'd buy something from the newsagents .

[Lounge Lizard]

If word gets round that Glasgow postal workers have spare time for obscure puzzles and riddles then job cuts will be inevitable.

[dvbuk55]

I got one with a picture of a willy and a bust of Napoleons Head delivered to me - I couldn't decipher it but obviously my colleagues could.