Second-class postal system means cards may already be too late for Christmas - Vladimir McTavish

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/ ... sh-4820171

Anyone thinking of sending Christmas cards this year had better get them in the postbox early, as first-class postage went up to £1.85 on Monday. Second-class is so slow, it may be too late already.

Lots of people have stopped sending cards which is hardly surprising given the cost. The cards themselves are cheap enough. You can get a dozen good quality ones for under three quid, which is less than two first-class stamps. That’s insane.

Stamps used to be cheap back in the old days before the Royal Mail was sold off to some foreign billionaire and the Post Office became an evil organisation that threw innocent people in jail to cover up the incompetence of its own IT system.

The original postage stamp introduced in 1840, the Penny Black, cost just one old penny, which is less than half of 1p. That’s an increase of nearly 2000 per cent in less than 200 years. As any keen philatelist will tell you, if you’re lucky enough to have an original Penny Black in good condition it could be worth as much as seven grand. And you’re never going to stick that on an envelope.

Incidentally, to clear up any confusion, I should point out that the term “philatelist” means one who is interested in philately. Philately is the posh word for stamp collecting, just in case any less educated readers thought I was referring to some kind of adventurous sexual practice.

I ought to further clarify that I am not referring to The Penny Black, Edinburgh’s legendary watering hole of the same name. Due to the terms of an ancient licence, it opened at five o’clock in the morning. This was so postal workers in the nearby sorting office could get a pint after coming off night shift.

It used to be a meeting place for hardened Fringe drinkers. After the last late-night venue had shut at 4am, people would head over to The Penny Black and be queuing outside at opening time. All of them were already hammered. Understandably, it could get quite messy. Indeed, I remember getting so drunk in there that I told everyone in the pub that I’d send them a Christmas card. Pints, and stamps, were much cheaper then.
Cheers. Merry Christmas.

[TopperGas]

Pretty certain RM's demise has been whilst we have been listed on the UK stock exchange rather than owned by a foreign billionaire

[Wullie10]

The Post office is not Royal Mail.

[matthew68]

Wake up they don’t want letters that’s why they are pricing themselves out of it just tracked items that’s the future, in 10 years your get 1 deliverey a week of letters and anything urgent will be 24 hours tracked with half the staff we have now. When we are taken over it’s the start of the end I’m afraid, this once great institution has been ruined by greedy shareholders and they don’t care about letters

[derekm]

Wake up they don’t want letters that’s why they are pricing themselves out of it just tracked items that’s the future, in 10 years your get 1 deliverey a week of letters and anything urgent will be 24 hours tracked with half the staff we have now. When we are taken over it’s the start of the end I’m afraid, this once great institution has been ruined by greedy shareholders and they don’t care about letters

Well said. They said privatisation was the only way for royal mail to thrive/ survive look at the mess it's in.

[heraldmoth]

It will be thriving but profits will end up in the pockets of a man built on Russian gas money. Parcel will b a 10 hour a day job and mail will end up one day a week unless u want to collect it

[matthew68]

Wake up they don’t want letters that’s why they are pricing themselves out of it just tracked items that’s the future, in 10 years your get 1 deliverey a week of letters and anything urgent will be 24 hours tracked with half the staff we have now. When we are taken over it’s the start of the end I’m afraid, this once great institution has been ruined by greedy shareholders and they don’t care about letters

Well said. They said privatisation was the only way for royal mail to thrive/ survive look at the mess it's in.

Yes it’s very sad I’m afraid a great business with caring postmen is being destroyed and the staff are also destroyed by management pressuring them

[Basildon Bond]

In 10 years Tracked 24 may seem very slow. While we can laugh at drone delivery attempts today, in 10 years you could have same-hour delivery rather than same-day . And it may not have come from a local warehouse - it could be from quite far, far away.

[Mr Rush]

In 10 years Tracked 24 may seem very slow. While we can laugh at drone delivery attempts today, in 10 years you could have same-hour delivery rather than same-day . And it may not have come from a local warehouse - it could be from quite far, far away.

Everything already does come from far away - East Asia. You can spot the drop-shipped items because the Tracked label is pasted over the customs declaration. I've had plenty of customers telling me they've been waiting two weeks for their T48, unaware that it's being surface shipped across half the planet. Whenever the Suez Canal gets gummed up it causes the global economic magic show to fail.

Choosing hypersonic delivery won't be cheap. Or safe. A 24 pack of Coca-Cola travelling at Mach 5 into your home will impart 10 megajoules (assuming Amazon's packaging holds up). By agreeing to Prime T&Cs you release Amazon S.à r.l. from indemnity resulting from the vapourisation of your postcode.