My Christmas message for Royal Mail: you can keep the card

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... mment=true

Its generosity extends to waiving the 50p charge to collect your mail if no-one was home when the postman called

Joan Bakewell

The first Christmas card of the year has arrived...and what's this, it's from the Royal Mail. It has a cheery red delivery van swooping over snowy slopes with a gaggle of acrobatic postmen spelling out: “We're all about you this Christmas.” Inside there's a load of guff about what to do if they have to leave a “sorry you were out card”. As in my case it would be more appropriate if they left a “sorry you were upstairs card”, I was interested to read that their generosity extends to waiving the 50p charge they usually make for the local collect scheme, where you find the post that they failed to get to your home now lurking in your local post office.

This is the price that they expect me to pay for not getting downstairs quickly enough. It seems extortionate and unreasonable. So I refuse to pay. No, I don't break any law. I just don't collect the parcels or letters the postie so impatiently needed me to sign for: I leave them to wilt and die wherever they are dumped.

If it doesn't reach me first time, it's gone for good. Your new novel? An invitation from somewhere grand? A reminder that my tax is due? They'll all be shredded in those remote places that the Royal Mail likes to hide them. I'm reminded of the advice given by the late Quentin Crisp: if you persist in doing nothing, the problem eventually disappears. And so does my post.

Why is the Royal Mail sending Christmas cards anyway? Why isn't it using every penny it can to keep the actual post offices open? There's a sort of chop logic here; it will waive the cost of collection by me, so that I will willingly schlep round in all weathers and thus keep its post offices in business. Ah, I notice the small print: “Subject to some geographical restrictions.” Perhaps the jaunty little red vans on the Christmas card really are taking my unclaimed post to the land of snow and Father Christmas.

So starts the whole Christmas agony of the Christmas card list. Who to keep on this year, who to leave off? Sometimes it's simple: some have taken themselves off by dying. Sometimes a Christmas card is the only evidence you get that people are still alive.

I favour keeping in touch with the oldest friends: some on my list go back to schooldays. Once the festival is over I sit and read all those little messages and updates. But what should one do about those who sent a round-robin explaining: “We are giving up Christmas cards and sending money to charity instead. We promise to think of you at the festive season.”

Is this mean-spirited, briskly efficient (how do we know they've sent money to charity?) or subtly superior (we prefer charity direct to your routinely dull nativity charity card)? You can toss on many a sleepless pillow trying to sort out that one.

[dvbuk55]

I don't know if that is THE Joan Bakewell - if it is she probably remembers when coal was king as well and before making an uneducated guess as to what happens to uncollected mail she should consider the cost of dealing with it - maybe it would have kept a post office or two open as the old adage goes - use it or lose it.

Personally I wouldn't have bothered with the card to the customers, whatever we do isn't going to be enough.

[Lounge Lizard]

I don't know if that is THE Joan Bakewell - if it is she probably remembers when coal was king as well and before making an uneducated guess as to what happens to uncollected mail she should consider the cost of dealing with it - maybe it would have kept a post office or two open as the old adage goes - use it or lose it.

Personally I wouldn't have bothered with the card to the customers, whatever we do isn't going to be enough.

If it is THE Joan Bakewell, or Crone Bakewell as she will be now, does she still live in Leverton Street, NW5 ?

[axeman]

Heaar she was a right tart

[pickaname]

Didnt Mr Kipling fill his tarts with cream?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Didnt Mr Kipling fill his tarts with cream?

[norbert]

Didnt Mr Kipling fill his tarts with cream?

thinking Man's crumpet in her day

[dvbuk55]

Didnt Mr Kipling fill his tarts with cream?

thinking Man's crumpet in her day

Geriatrics Delight now.

[not me]

i want the post offices open
i disagree with RM charging 50p for a service thats is paid tothe post office
i dont agree when its offered free
i shouldnt be informed of this

seems logical to me

[k979aaa]

Joan clean your ear's out wake up and smell the coffee!. Postmen/women don't have the time these day's as time is money said the buisnessman :lfo to his lacky :cfo and he told his minnion's to tell the WORKER'S (the postmen/women) of this land the we don't have time for cream tart's and elevenses anymore!.

[dvbuk55]

Oh I don't know I think I might find time for a cream tart, well any tart really.

[k979aaa]

Oh I don't know I think I might find time for a cream tart, well any tart really.

Ive heard her called the thinking man's crumpet crumpet and tart all rolled together.