Going Postal

There is nothing more annoying than doing everything you can to make something work, but being scuppered by forces beyond your control. Especially when the result is that you cannot fulfil your responsibility.

I have had just such an experience this week, courtesy of our increasingly erratic postal service. It's not as if I live in the middle of nowhere; a fairly central London address should, you'd think, at least mean you'd get your post on time. But no - it turns up when it feels like it. Delivery can be at any time from, on current form, 8:00AM to 2:15PM, and I don't have the time to stay in to wait for something important. And First Class post can mean next day or it can mean three or four days hence.

I am avowedly anti government interference, but I am also pro stuff working. Therefore I accept that there are certain things which Government can usefully do. Amongst them are run the postal service - something which actually can be usefully centrally managed, to standardise and maintain predictable levels of service across the country, since post goes everywhere. Governments can also run railways - my recent experience of French railways, contrasted with my recent experience of those in Britain, has convinced me of that. Not that I'd trust this lot to run anything, but the current system really doesn't work.

So there you have it - Government has a purpose. It's a carefully limited thing, but it exists. Trouble is, when you acknowledge that, they quickly announce that they want to decide what colour your socks should be too.