Thanks for the kind welcomes guys!
I'm from Portsmouth on the south coast of England - spiritual home of the Royal Navy, and birthplace of Charles Dickens and Sherlock Holmes!
I hope you've backed Jackson's Sherlock Holmes deck then!
I'm another Brit, and Don is right those postage costs, Americans don't know they're born!
I still remember when I was a child, a first-class letter not more than one ounce was only 10 cents, then went to 13 cents - it was only a nickel (5 cents) when I was born. Now it's 46 cents, and the price goes higher in January. Your Royal Mail - still government run? The US Postal Service has been spun off for maybe two or three decades, relying solely on revenue from postal charges. On the plus side, something called the "Forever Stamp" was introduced in 2007 - it's always valid postage for a one-ounce letter, regardless of the price you originally paid for it. It saves them from having to redesign and redistribute the basic postage with every increase and eliminates the need for "make-up stamps" to pay the difference from the old stamp rate to the new one, for people still in possession of the old stamps. You don't have to pay extra to mail your letter with each increase until you run out of stamps - but because the stamp goes unused for so long, you've in essence given the Postal Service an interest-free loan for all that time by paying for services they don't actually provide for you until you request it months or even years later.
Still, I've heard tales of some countries where people will steal the stamps right off your envelopes, so you're lucky if your letters and packages ever arrive...
Did I mention that I tend to ramble? Or that I hold the award for most tangential poster?
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