Old Blog, but still true

[Stormproof]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/christophe ... al/page/59
You were out
Monday, November 6, 2006, 07:16 PM GMT [General]

I was sitting in the bath when the postman knocked on the door. It was Saturday, because during the week the postman never arrives till getting on for lunchtime.


Once we knew and liked our postmen. Not now

This means that no one who goes out to work gets the post until the evening, by which time the last post by which to reply has gone.

This Saturday the postman had pity on me, and, instead of leaving a card saying I was out and the package would be at the sorting office for collection, he left it on the step.

No doubt by doing so he exposed himself to the risk of discipline, but it was the right thing to do. If the postman had put the card through the letter box instead, it would have said that I should leave a few hours before trudging off to the sorting office, to allow time for the postie to lug it back there.

By that time the sorting office would have closed until Monday morning. On Monday it would have been impossible to collect the packet, because the sorting office is open to customers only from 9 to 5, when we are safely at work elsewhere.

The same goes for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So it would have been a whole week before I could have picked up the packet.

Even then it would have been difficult, because the sorting office is only open until noon on Saturdays. When I passed it this Saturday (on the way to buy an oven glove at the benighted Army & Navy Stories, sorry, I mean, House of Fraser but that's another story) there was a queue snaking, yes, snaking is the approved cliché, down the pavement.

It was a chilly morning and the red brick fastness of the sorting office cast a chill shadow over the insufficiently muffled queuers. They had not expected to queue. They had expected to nip in and pick up a packet, or, in most cases, a letter bearing insufficient postage.

Of course, they would not know whom the letter came from. Could be important. So it might be worth standing in the November frost till laboriously the queue allowed them to face the post office person behind a wire-glass partition and be asked for identification.

If they hadn't got identification (the card from the post office counting for nothing) they'd have to go back home, by way of the parking-ticketed car perhaps, and fetch identification and come back and join the queue.

If they managed to make it to the front before noon, they'd most likely find a bit of junk mail they did not want with a surcharge of £1 on it.

The main reason for the pathetic outdoor queue is that Royal Mail has invented this daft pricing system that fixes postage prices by three different criteria: size, thickness and weight.

It might be the right size but too heavy, the right size but too thick (CDs are caught by that), or a bit lighter but too long.

We used to like postmen. We knew them and they knew our little ways, leaving a parcel round the back under the trays of seedlings in the greenhouse.

We gave them a glass of sherry at Christmas. We did not mind them sloping off if they'd done their rounds.

Now we do not like postmen. They are not regulars, but strange figures who do not even know which house is which. Our post is eagerly shoved through the letterbox of a house opposite where the owner has gone away for three months.

The new management practices are worse than the old Spanish practices of the postmen. Which management person came up with the idea of abolishing the little enamel slips on the pillar boxes which told you when the next collection would be?

Now you do not even know if the last collection for the day has been collected. My nearest box usually says MON all week.

In my last blog I was complaining about the nasty ways of moths (clothes moths, not the pretty colourful moth, that was posted next to my text).

But given the choice between moths and post office managers, I'll settle for the moths, at least until the moths come up with the idea of making me queue outdoors on a Saturday morning to have my clothes eaten.

[Lounge Lizard]

Well, he has to fill the Torygraph with something, and it would have spoilt his story if he had explained that rather than waiting a week he could have (a) arranged for someone else to collect it or (b) arranged for it to be delivered to another address or (c) for 50p arranged for it to be taken to a local Post Office.

[greynut]

Well, he has to fill the Torygraph with something, and it would have spoilt his story if he had explained that rather than waiting a week he could have (a) arranged for someone else to collect it or (b) arranged for it to be delivered to another address or (c) for 50p arranged for it to be taken to a local Post Office.

Makes me laugh. Have the item delivered to your work address.

[dvbuk55]

Wonder how happy he would have been if some scrota had nicked it off his doorstep?

[DGP1]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

[Lounge Lizard]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

[dvbuk55]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

[DGP1]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

[dvbuk55]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

Would that be a brazilian fringe or a landing strip fringe - not that I know what I'm talking about of course

[DGP1]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

Would that be a brazilian fringe or a landing strip fringe - not that I know what I'm talking about of course

You should have a little peek

[dvbuk55]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

Would that be a brazilian fringe or a landing strip fringe - not that I know what I'm talking about of course

You should have a little peek

Not one of those little dogs - I tried one once but I couldn't eat it all

[DGP1]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

Would that be a brazilian fringe or a landing strip fringe - not that I know what I'm talking about of course

You should have a little peek

Not one of those little dogs - I tried one once but I couldn't eat it all

One of those meals that's just the dogs bollox

[dvbuk55]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

Would that be a brazilian fringe or a landing strip fringe - not that I know what I'm talking about of course

You should have a little peek

Not one of those little dogs - I tried one once but I couldn't eat it all

One of those meals that's just the dogs bollox

I left those - oh and that bit that looked like a bundle of the old brown elastic bands - it was far too chewy

[DGP1]

This is one of the reasons that a regular postie is much better than changing the posties on a weekly sometime daily basis.

Yes, he would know which day and at what time Christopher Howse or his wife would be sitting in the bath.

Then it would be up with the ladder and a peek through the window I suppose Shame on you.

It was always a fringe benefit

Would that be a brazilian fringe or a landing strip fringe - not that I know what I'm talking about of course

You should have a little peek

Not one of those little dogs - I tried one once but I couldn't eat it all

One of those meals that's just the dogs bollox

I left those - oh and that bit that looked like a bundle of the old brown elastic bands - it was far too chewy

Must've been old ones then you should've asked for some salted nuts

[dvbuk55]

You should have a little peek

Not one of those little dogs - I tried one once but I couldn't eat it all [/quote]

One of those meals that's just the dogs bollox [/quote]

I left those - oh and that bit that looked like a bundle of the old brown elastic bands - it was far too chewy [/quote]

Must've been old ones then you should've asked for some salted nuts [/quote]

Salted nuts - now that is something me and mrs dv will have to try - maybe after christmas dinner when she has opened her present from Anne Summers, whoever she is. I'm not sure but it looks like a howitzer shell in wrapping paper.