I’ve remembered why I gave up the Postcode Tour last time.
There are just too many postcodes and not enough time to write about them. They ended up taking over last time and they are doing the same again.
I have made a decision – I am only going to use the postcodes from Mondays, or Mondays and Tuesdays if Monday doesn’t produce enough. That way I preserve the random element of the tour but avoid submerging the blog in constant UK trivia.
Today I have ten postcodes, though one is a duplicate of one from last week – WN7. You can have too much of a good thing so I’m going to leave Wigan out this week. That still leaves me with nine, and that’s still a lot to fit in. However, as my plan calls for 3.5 extra posts a week this may be useful.
I’ve just been looking at the number of postcode areas – I think it came to 121 but I kept losing count. Then there are the ones for overseas territories and the special code – XM4 5HQ. That’s the one specially reserved for Santa, and it gets 800,000 letters per year.
Seems nice and whimsical doesn’t it? All cuddly and touchy-feely. And then you realise that 800,000 letters, even if they are Second Class, need £488,000 worth of stamps. It is pure commercial genius!
British children also send about 100,000 letters a year to Santa in Finland – another £135,000 at International Standard rate for a 10 gram letter. I will say no more, lest the words “Bah! Humbug!” are heard, once more, throughout the land.
This is an interesting article on the Santa Industry if you have time to read it. Uplifting in parts, depressing in others, and proving once again that modern British kids need a lesson in old-fashioned manners.
Just to show I know how to get into the festive spirit (it is October after all and the shops are filling with Christmas crap) this is a picture of me as Santa from several years ago, I scared two of the eleven children who visited, so be careful who you show it to.
Possibly the worst Santa in the World
Replies are great as your post today.
Nah – you would look good in a Carlsberg ad.
I credit Carlsberg with putting me off tinned beer forever. But then with draught and bottles did we ever really need cans?
Never
🙂
Your picture inspired me to verse:
There was an old man with a beard
Who said, “It is just as I feared.
My wig is a fright
And the light is too bright,
So I look like an absolute….”
I ran out of ideas at the end there.
You probably need to eat more fish.
A Scots poet started to strain
and felt he needed more fish for his brain
he ate a fine sprat
which attended to that
and he started to rhyme once again.
There were other rhymes available, but I think I chose wisely.
I had sardines for lunch today. It obviously wasn’t enough.
It’s a tricky balancing act. Once you have enough brains a few more may lead to to showing off, which is not good.
True. I shall continue not to have too many brains.
It is probably for the best.
Great photo, Quercus! Now if Julia could string up some lights in your beard again, that would be perfect! 🙂
You never know what might happen at Christmas…