Part & Parcel

NEWS that post is not priced by weight alone but also by size is encouraging. We are assured that if we can crush out package down to its smallest we can save money.

So we took a hammer and smashed to a million pieces our real glass-style Anorak figurines of Princess Diana putting a splint on a butterfly’s fractured wing. This to-die-for antique for the future is now cheaper to transport to our American clients. And in smashing it up we have saved the postal service the bother. Everyone wins.

But not everyone embraces change as well as us. And in the Times, the “biggest upheaval to the British postal service since the Penny Black” is causing confusion.

The paper travels to Old Street, London, and hears customer Ian Bailey say: “It was so easy just to buy a 1st-class stamp, put it on and post it. Now you have to think about the size and thickness, the type of stamp as well as the weight. It is a lot more complicated.”

And the Times’s writer in the post office makes it all the way from Old Street to Islington, two places at least half a mile apart, to gage the mood of the county as a whole.

Up in North London, Julia, a counter clerk, tells the paper: “Some people may need time to get used to it, but you actually get better value for some mail.”

Indeed. And aside from smashing your goods to a pulp or shredding your letters into tiny pieces before putting the bits into a tiny envelope, Julia points out that whereas you used to pay 32p for up to 60g, you can now get up to 100g for the same price. Drugs dealers who transport their wares by post will be enthused.

But not everyone is as wise to the new ways as Julia. The Telegraph says sub-postmasters are unaware of the rules. It uses the example of greeting cards with badges attached, which are no longer eligible for first-class stamps.

So forget the badge, but remember to include the birthday card and a cash insert. The chaps in the sorting office will appreciate it…

Posted: 22nd, August 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink