Post office services go postal

Post office

 
A visit to the local post office, where changes are afoot:
 

Me: Can you stick the address label over the existing address on the parcel please. I’ve just reused old packaging and it will be confusing otherwise.

Post Office worker: Oh we don’t produce address labels, just the postage label.

Me: OK, can I buy some sticky labels then to put over the address?

PO worker: We don’t sell sticky labels.

Me (slightly taken aback): But, but, you’re a post office. Surely you sell them?

PO worker (shrugs): We never have. I can give you a scrap of paper and some tape to stick over it if you like?

Me: Well, yes please – otherwise it will go to the wrong place. Can I buy a biro to write on it?

PO worker (grips own pen a little tighter): We don’t sell them.

Me: I, but, post office, thought, erm, can I borrow yours?

…PO worker hands over pen like it’s gold-encrusted and transaction continues and concludes…

PO Worker: Can I ask who provides your internet service at home?

Me (naively): You can but, why?

PO worker (eyes lighting up): Ah because we now offer a range of internet services, including latest optical fibre cabling at very competitive prices. We even offer insurance, mortgages, credit cards and more. We’re not just “the Post Office” anymore!

Me: Well, if you don’t sell pens or sticky labels or produce address labels don’t you think you should just work on being a better post office for a bit longer?

PO worker (snatches back pen): Have a nice day. NEXT!

Facing Facebook Book Recommendations

A while ago I asked my Facebook friends if they had to recommend one book (an almost impossible task, I know) which it would be. As I am aiming to increase the variety of what I read I summarised the responses and am slowly working through them (not to the exclusion of my usual choices though). What a great list it is turning out to be – which is no surprise given the erudition of my friends who span the globe. I thought others might like to see the list too. I hope I didn’t miss any, apologies if so.

Oh and my desert island book? That would have to be I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Anyway, here is the list (in no particular order):

cover title author
The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig
Post Captain
Iacocca: An Autobiography

 

The End of the Affair
The Painted Veil
The Great Gatsby
The English Patient
How To Be A Brit
Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1)
Isle of Passion
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Oscar et la dame rose
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Fountain Overflows
The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
Odd John
Star Maker
Pilgrim's Inn (Eliots of Damerosehay, #2)
Jane Eyre
Don Quixote
Mémoires d'Hadrien
A Christmas Memory
Cold Mountain
Death and the Penguin
Il cavaliere e la morte
cover title author
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1)
Dune (Dune Chronicles #1)
Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1)
Exodus
The Sirian Experiments