I’m interested in the way that words change their meaning once they are adopted by bureaucratic institutions. Take deregulation, for instance, as it’s applied to postal services in Britain. It appears to mean an opening of the market to allow competition. But if you look more closely you will see that, in order to achieve this, the Royal Mail’s ability to act in its own interest has been severely curtailed…
Read more here.
Categories: Associated stories
Tags: competition, deregulation, London Review of Books, LRB, LRB blog, modernisation, private mail companies, privatisation, roy mayall blog, royal mail, TNT
A review of Dear Granny Smith on the Stop Junk Mail website.
http://stopjunkmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/dear-granny-smith.html
This is a website whose views I wholeheartedly endorse.
Recommended.
Michael Billington’s theatre, Carlos Fuentes Happy Families, Nelson’s Navy and why being a postman isn’t what it used to be
By Anna Richards, Brian MacArthur, Toby Clements and Simon Baker
Published: 11:27AM GMT 15 Dec 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/6816561/Pick-of-the-paperbacks.html
Dear Granny Smith by Roy Mayall
Short, £4.99
If you want to understand why postmen go on strike, read this book. Granny Smith is the old lady who lives alone, for whom the postman is a lifeline but who, apparently, doesn’t matter any more. Roy Mayall (a punning pseudonym) is a postman of the old school before the corporate modernisers started applying the techniques of business administration to wrecking the Royal Mail. There is lyricism here – “the lovely, soft, golden light of the early morning” when he sets out – but also a howl of rage as he describes what modernisation means for postmen on the beat. They now spend most of their time on deliveries that will instantly be thrown in the dustbin.
Brian MacArthur
Modernisation agreements. Market liberalisation. Downstream access. Postal services should be simple: sender posts letter, post office sorts letter, recipient gets letter. Yet the Royal Mail strike in October was over issues so complicated that even union officials struggled to sum them up…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/17/im-praise-roy-mayall-post
You have to read the comments on this. It seems I’m not who I think am…
Roy Mayall takes a look at Panorama.
From The Guardian.
“As Panorama showed, the idea that posties’ loads are falling is nonsense – particularly when we have to carry our rivals’ mail….”
Read more here.
Watch Panorama in BBC iPlayer here.
Very few mailmen mislead their customers – but it’s more likely to happen at Christmas…
Tuesday 15 December 2009
Read more here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pcdpk/Book_of_the_Week_Dear_Granny_Smith_Episode_1/
Dear Granny Smith: A letter from your postman written by Roy Mayall and delivered by Philip Jackson; a heartfelt musing on the past, present and future role of one of the oldest British institutions, the Postie.
Episode 1
Why postmen used to have the best job in the world, and why it’s heading towards becoming the worst.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pcdpk/Book_of_the_Week_Dear_Granny_Smith_Episode_1/
Christmas is the most important time of the year for the Royal Mail. It is when the company comes into its own…
Read more here.
I’m interested in the way that words change their meaning once they are adopted by bureaucratic institutions. Take deregulation, for instance, as it’s applied to postal services in Britain. It appears to mean an opening of the market to allow competition. But if you look more closely you will see that, in order to achieve this, the Royal Mail’s ability to act in its own interest has been severely curtailed…
