Friday, July 14, 2006
Sealed with a kiss. But not a big kiss. That's extra.
LOWCULTURE is confused. "Not for the first time," we hear you all holler. The difference today is that we're confused about something specific, namely the TV ads that have started popping up for some new-fangled system "they" are introducing for posting letters. We tried to find out more about it, but unfortunately it all seemed so complicated that our heads fell off and rolled across the room, then exploded. Happily, Nick off the LOWCULTURE messageboard has had the whole thing explained by the postwoman where he works, and is adept at communicating complicated things to idiots in a pleasing manner. He reports that:
AT THE MOMENT, letters are charged based on weight.
IN THE FUTURE, letters will be charged based on weight AND size. This is because of machines, the postwoman explained, because machines don't like handling letters that are big and flat and light. She threw some letters around the office to demonstrate why this doesn't work for the machines. Then she continued.
THE NEW RULES: Any letter UP TO 100g in weight, 240x165mm in size (just over A5, so big enough to fit A5 paper inside - in the world of envelopes, this is called 'C5') and 5mm in thickness (apparently that's 12 pieces of A4 copy paper folded once, fact fans!) counts as a regular capital-L Letter, and would be charged accordingly. The cardboard thing has a red rectangle to place letters on to check the size, and a slot cut into it to push them through if you are extremely worried that it will turn out to be too thick.
BUT! Any letter UP TO 750g in weight, 353x250mm in size (big enough for a fat wedge of A4 paper without stretching the envelope so tightly that it rips open when Will Mellor chucks it at Dean Lennox-Kelly, or whoever) and 25mm in thickness (that's 120 pieces of A4 copy paper laid flat, fact fans!) is classed as a Large Letter. A Large Letter is similar to a Letter, but Larger. The Letter Size Guide has a big shaded rectangle and a wider, fatter slot to measure these letters against, too. A Letter will always fit through the Large Letter slot, but a Large Letter will not fit through the Letter slot, otherwise it would be a Letter, not a Large Letter. If a Large Letter doesn't fit through the Large Letter slot, it is a packet. Packet isn't capitalised, sorry. If it is a chunky box or something, it is also a packet.
» Well all of that really is quite the limit! It's enough to make our heads fall off, roll across the room and then explode. Or it would be, if that hadn't already happened a few paragraphs back.
» And you're probably thinking "what's that got to do with telly?". And the answer is, precisely nothing. We're random like that!
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