« The Fools, babbling again. | Main | A nice old black metal box »

January 08, 2008

Postcodes and nincompoops

The postcode system is a wonderful thing. Ok, it does have its dark side - when people use the system for categorising consumers and for estimating insurance risks. But on the whole it’s a Good Thing.

It’s also a World Thing. If you go to Google Earth, or Google Maps, you get a big picture of planet Earth.

g-earth.jpg

If you type in your postcode the earth spins, in a reassuring way, and begins to zoom in on your front door. How excellent is that?

Parcel delivery is a thing that has been going on for centuries. It reeks of history: The Great North Road, the Mail Coach making its way through fine weather and foul, the Postilion wrapped tight against the elements, Pony Express, the Mail Train.

p Mailcoach.jpg

The latter-day purveyors of parcels have sexy adverts with catchy tunes, whizzy graphics and fancy logos.

You’d think they’d be able to deliver parcels by now.

I don’t work round the corner of a dark alley, behind a derelict building overgrown with bushes, in an obscure part of town. My studio is in a 3 storey mill building on the main Wakefield - Huddersfield road. The line “Bankfield Mill” is a dead giveaway as to the type of building it might be, especially in an area of textile mills.

the-mill-sunset-sm.jpg

When you type my postcode into the Google engines the arrow points right to this building, on the side of the road, you get a photograph of the place. It’s not like the post code is for a whole area, this building has its own code, the building next door is different.

sat-image.jpg

Parcelforce, as I understand it, came out of that bastion of delivery skills the Post Office, but is now probably owned by some Chinese zinc-plating consortium. This would explain why they can’t find me.

Twice.

UPDATE: Parceline can't find the place either. I rang them and they said "are there any landmarks near?" I said "What, other than a three-storey mill building with a hundred foot chimney next to it?" Am I missing something here?

Posted by john at January 8, 2008 11:02 AM

Comments