…are waxing philosophical about blogging:
Accordingly, we suspect that news and commentary alike, whether in the newspapers, on television or on blogs, can never be as objective, or as rational, as we all like to pretend they can be. We’re not saying that trying to be objective and rational is a waste of time; just that the trying is the point, and the criterion.
I can see their point. Also, further down there’s a post called “Farewell to the Travelling Post Offices” that would be much more fascinating to me if I knew more about England (said lack is, of course, my own fault). Anyone feel like explaining it a bit?
According to this site on Travelling Post Offices, they were mail-sorting offices on rail cars, used for tight scheduling.
When we went to Scotland a few years ago, we spent a few days on Islay, which is not exactly what I’d call bustling, although it was remarkably pleasant. It takes some planning to get around the island, as there is just one bus line, and we were afraid that we would be trapped for the night after touring the Lagavulin distillery. (I know, I know, “poor, poor pitiful me”. You should try some of the stuff they’ve got back in the warehouse for private customers. Anyway…)
We asked Maggie, the wonderful woman at the distillery, how on Earth we were to get back to our hotel, as we had misunderstood the bus schedule. She suggested that the Royal Mail carried passengers for a small fee, and that we just had time to make the last delivery of the day. We toddled out to the road, where two laconic postwomen arrived in a little red Royal Mail minivan. We all tossed mail sacks around to clear some space, and they drove us back to Bowmore with a brief stop by the central post office.
The postwomen hadn’t said more than about ten words to us (“Where are you headed? Where are you from? Hmmm.”) during the entire ride, but at the end when they dropped us off, one of them cracked, “I bet you don’t get mail service like this in America.” I had to confess that she was correct. 🙂