Taking place in Kuwait, it was recently reported that a widespread stamp shortage was experienced due to the absence of just one employee. Taking a holiday from their position, the postal service in Kuwait was forced to turn customers away as the stamp shortage prevented the dispatch of parcels of a particular size.

For expats, this was naturally a source of irritation. Those who spoke of the incident detailed how they had returned to post offices numerous times only to be told there were still no stamps available. Many customers were advised to visit other post offices whilst others considered the use of alternative services.

For those of us sat in the UK, this situation can be described as nothing short of farcical. The notion that such widespread disruption could be caused by the absence of one employee is laughable and, were such a holiday to be taken in the UK, the consequences would be nowhere near as extreme.

In fact, there would more than likely be no noticeable difference within the UK during such an event – with the postal service ensuring that stamps are adequately distributed regardless of whether the employee in charge of their management is on leave or not. For the individual taking the holiday, adequate cover would be found with provisions made to ensure all post office sites had an adequate supply of stamps for their customers.

Any disruption or shortages experienced would be met with fierce condemnation from the British public who would find it difficult to accept that the cornerstone of postal services could be so easily disrupted.

These same individuals would also be likely to find alternative ways to post their goods without consulting more expensive courier services. In fact, a number of them may still have a decent supply of stamps in their own possession – following the panic buying which followed the increase to stamp prices earlier this year. For many businesses this price rise meant they had to look into solving this cost increase by looking into mailroom efficiency.

Of course, for those involved in the situation in Kuwait, the hit to the service is not quite so comical. An inability to send goods may seem like a minor inconvenience to most but, where business operations or time-sensitive deadlines are involved, the results of delayed postal services can be far worse.

Thankfully, for those of us on home soil, such a situation is unlikely to ever prevent itself. With a fairly reliable service on hand to help distribute and sort mail, as well as websites such as stamp-prices.co.uk providing pricing and sizing details for our goods, nothing could be easier than sending or receiving post in the UK – unless it’s coming from Kuwait and there’s an employee on holiday perhaps!

One of the stamps that were revealed had 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics Gold medal stamps printed on them. Another stamp celebrates Her Majesty Queen’s Diamond Jubilee by printing her face on the stamp. Some of the other stamps will have faces of many popular Britons such as Charles Dickens, Frederick Delius, Roald Dahl.

The revealing of stamps is an honor in itself as some of the Britain’s most memorable events are going to take place in the year of 2012. One of them being the London 2012 Olympics, these particular stamps will be made available to the general public starting from 5^th of January 2012. All the stamps can be easily purchased online, or from different post office around the country and also many shop owners will be supplying them at very affordable price.  The basic purpose behind printing of these stamps is to share with the rest of the world the joy of playing the best of games which comes from the Olympics and it is a great way to have interaction with audience from all around the world who will come to London for the much awaited Olympics.

The stamp which will entertain Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee also has concrete reason behind it for being published in this year.  The greatest being that it will be 60^th year of her ruling and the stamps will have a total of five monarch printed on them, starting from the 20^th century along with queens face beside them. This surely is a great way to commemorate the services of the Queen who has been there for the nation for many blissful years now and has led it in the right path of glory. Furthermore the stamps concerned with Roald Dahl also have their way of showing gratitude to the late writer. There will be images of Charlie and the chocolate factory, giant peaches and fantastic foxes on the stamps and this will surely be a great collection for children of all ages who are real fans of one of the Britain’s greatest story teller Roald Dahl.

To conclude, it would be righteous to say that although we are living in the age of technology, where the use of stamps have almost become obsolete with instant messaging and email at our disposal, but the joys and celebration from the tradition should not be forgotten at any era or at any time of the year. These stamps will help us remember the greatest of the events that would and will take place during our lifetime.

Roald Dahl was born in Wales about 95 years back. He developed an interest in writing at a very young age and spent most of his time reading short stories and books for children. His Norwegian mother also used to tell him a lot of exciting and adventurous stories which Roald loved to listen. Roald’s father was also a terrific diary writer. Roald also started writing his own personal diary at the age of about eight years. Roald Dahl is basically a brilliant and a very successful writer of children’s stories.

Because he is such a successful writer of short stories for children, his stories have been celebrated and given so much importance this year that they have appeared on six of the stamps issued by Royal Mail. It is basically the images that represent Roald Dahl’s work that appear on the stamps. The most famous of his works have been featured on the stamps, including: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mister Fox, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits and The Witches.

It is indeed a matter of immense pleasure for the family of Roald Dahl that his famous works have been portrayed like this. His daughter is overwhelmed and extremely proud of her father. She says that his father would have been a very happy person.

The most distinguishing part of this action was to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Big Friendly Giant by portraying its popular characters on a sheet containing four stamps.

It is good to see how Royal Mail is paying tribute to some of the legendary personalities. The staff of Royal Mail mentioned that it is very happy to be having featured the famous writer’s work and are indeed looking forward to featuring other popular writers on their stamps, too!

The different stamps featuring Roald Dahl’s famous works include:
• First day covers which basically focus on those popular places where Roald Dahl wrote most of his epistles.
• Miniature sheets which entirely focus on the famous Big Friendly Giant’s characters, celebrating its 30th anniversary
• Mini Stamps that include most of those characters that Roald Dahl loved
• Presentation pack which is mostly about Roald Dahl’s life itself
• Roald Dahl Stamp Cards which are postcard sized cards
• Prestige stamp book in which the life of Roald Dahl’s is portrayed
• Pin Badges
• Framed Stamps which are a perfect gift

So as we can see, there is a huge variety of stamps produced and issued in the honour of the very famous writer. It is not only a perfect start to the New Year but also a reminder of the famous works of the author that he wrote for children. This act of Royal Mail should certainly be appreciated.

The coins minted by the Royal Mint have been made from gold, silver, platinum and cupro-nickel. Being the biggest event of the sports, not only has the Olympics 2012 gained popularity and collected fans worldwide, but has also encouraged its crazy-for-sports fans to have their own collections of these coins as a keepsake of the Olympic games hosted by London. The minting of these coins honouring the Olympic Games becoming an official project reflects the anticipation and excitement behind this event. Moreover, these coins have been wrapped up in colourful packages attracting sports fans even more and showing how much anticipation and vibrancy there is.

There are not only the coins defining the games to be held in the Olympics 2012 but there are also a few which focus on the Olympic countdown and surprisingly even a few Greek gods. All you need to do is pay a small amount and one of these coins will be yours, to forever celebrate the memories of the biggest event in London. One of the most interesting facts about these coins is that they are not merely specialized for the showcase reflecting a particular event but they can be used just like any other coin anywhere.

The final official Olympic coin was minted based on the design by Saiman Miah who is a student at an art school. This is the most beautiful of all the designs, reflecting a great view of London’s skyline. The “handover” coin has also gained much popularity. The design of this handover coin shows the official Olympic flag being handed over to London. Moreover, the design of the countdown coins have created great uproar among the sports maniacs all around the world as these coins are being produced showing numbers one, two and three as they wait for the countdown from the 4th year.

Interestingly, the Royal Mint has declared the circulation of billions of these coins throughout the year and the most honourable thing being the approval given by the Queen herself. These coins will surely remain to be a great cultural part of the United Kingdom

You can view the entire collection of different designs on the royal mint website.

The most attractive part of this new feature is that people can withdraw their savings with a very minimum charge at any time of the year. If the savers provide a 30 days’ advance notice to withdraw the specific amount, no charge is deducted but if they want to access their savings without a 30 days’ notice, then they will have to be charged a penalty fee of just the loss of interest on those 30 days. Moreover, if a person feels the need for a monthly or a yearly compounding rate, he can request the Post Office for either of the case. Even in the case of monthly compounding a very attractive rate is given by the Post Office. This is the amount of flexibility given by Post Office.

People can visit the branch, call them or even write to them if they want to access their account. Hence this shows how convenient and attractive this would be for people who want to save.

The Post Office reward saver accounts scheme not includes a 3% Annual equivalent rate (which is by the way more than any of the rates given by the competitors of Post Office, including Aldermore’s) but it has also announced a 1.25% bonus in the first year.

Another unique and rather attractive feature is that Post Office has announced to be flexible and change their interest rates in line with those of the Bank of England’s rate changes. This promise is yet for 2013 only but you never know what new feature or facility post office comes up with then.

As a reward for the easiness made by Post Office for people who save, and the effectiveness of Post Office to provide people with such a terrific platform to save, has not only made Post Office popular among the savers but it has also earned them numerous rewards. These rewards not only have awards for the benefits of savings, but also for a consistent rate, and fixed rate bond provisions. Indeed this is a great achievement of Post Office.

Address Printers have become popular with many organisations with a circulation base, like theatres, charities or trade unions who find it much easier to print directly on the envelope than printing and applying labels. They are also used by professionals in the mailing industry who know that personalised mail is more effective.

An address printer can effectively put the finishing touch for the professional look introduced by a franking machine to all your business mailings. Many address printers sold in the market have colour printing and other useful options effectively eliminating the cost of printing labels and the need to stock ready printed envelopes. The creation of personalised and compelling envelopes increases the probability of your mail being opened and read by the recipient. In fact with an address printer you can take control of marketing and membership mailings by handling these in-house rather than contracting out to an agency.

Most of the franking machine suppliers in the UK also provide office based envelope printers that are capable of carrying out many other functions in addition to printing addresses. These functions include printing of fixed and variable data such as barcodes, postage paid impressions, numbering, text and other applications. The printing could be done on a variety of material such as normal printing papers, envelopes, carrier sheets, post card, bubble bags etc.

Among the heavy users of envelope printers are mailing houses, publishers, printers, financial institutions, associations, local and national government agencies and many other areas associated with industry and commerce.

Most address printers are compact. Speeds range from 7500 envelopes and hour to machines that are used by professional mailing operations, capable of 40,000 envelopes an hour. The software included in the latest machines make it easy to adjust the printing requirement.

Interesting information
• Over 50% of skiers that head off to the slopes for slippery fun don’t even bother to wrap up safely and put on a helmet.

• Skiers that have more experience on the slopes are a lot less likely to put on a helmet than skiing virgins and over 94% of them confess that they don’t bother to wear protective head gear.

• People that are over the age of 55 are even less likely to adorn protective head gear.
It’s a terrifying thing to think about over 51% of skier’s do not wear head gear and they are fully aware of the danger involved.

The post office released some information from their travel insurance research that revealed that the persons that are less likely to put on head helmets have been on skiing holidays over 5 times in a space of five years. An alarming 94% of those more experienced skiers don’t wear helmets. First time skiers however, are a hell of a lot more likely to adorn head gear and only 49% of them decide not to.

Contrary to common belief that the older you get, the more common sense you pick up, the over 55’s shamed the nation by turning out to be the least likely category that would wear a helmet when on a skiing holiday, 36% of over 55’s didn’t wear head gear. It is nice to know though that younger age categorys, those that are between the age of 18 and 34 took the time to protect their head and take protective measures prior to skiing on the slopes.

The best excuse that people can come up that was given by 48% of people is that they ‘never considered wearing one’ A quarter of people said that they didn’t think that skiing was an activity that required wearing a helmet. Another 27% of people just say that they have a bad habit to not put one on. As the saying goes, over confidence can lead to accidents – so it’s important to make sure that you bag some travel insurance and wear protective headgear before cracking your skull on the slopes.

Alarming facts about those that don’t wear a helmet.

• 3 out of 5 women say that it messes up their hair and doesn’t look attractive when they adorn a helmet.
• Three percent of men wo clouds, unfold!
orry about how the helmet looks on their head.
• It’s usually men that decide they will go commando and ski without a helmet because they consider them self more of an action man.
• One out of five Skiers that did wear helmets on their holidays said that they really needed to because they had had accidents in the past and suffered a head injury. 8% of those people said that they have got friends or relatives that have serious head injuries as a result of not wearing protective head gear.

So the lesson of the day is wear a helmet and make sure you get travel insurance before you go to the slopes.

For example, the USA is full of festive places, named after Santa and his reindeers! In Georgia, Indiana, and Arizona there are places called Santa Claus. In villages and towns there is also a plethora of destinations named after his reminder. Comet seems to be the most popular reindeer to date – popping up an amazing 6 times on the map of the USA. There are also places named, Donner, Vixen, Dasher, Cupid, Rudolph and Blitzen.

But the festive names don’t just stay in the USA. There are some very well named international destinations sharing the festive naming trend. In fact, this time more food orientated – such as Brussels and Turkey!

And as the Christmas theme jingles on, little closer to the UK, Wales has a town called Bethlehem – and Scotland has one called Star. In Mississippi (USA), there’s a Sledge, and Sweden has a Stocking! In fact there are Christmas Islands dotted around the globe.

Wherever you happen to be this Christmas, even if it does not have a very Christmassy name, I am sure it will be a merry one.

This year, Royal Mails offices will be jam packed with over 2 billion items looking to find their way to homes before Christmas.  on the 12^th of December it was extremely busy, with over 130 million postage items passing into sorting offices around the UK. On an average postal day, Royal Mail offices see only 62 million items passing thorough, so you can imagine the leg work that goes into the operation.

It’s predicted that Royal Mail will be responsible for handling about 155 million presents that have been ordered online this year. In 2010 over 750 million Christmas cards were sent to homes around the UK.  That’s an amazing 17 for every woman, man and kid in the UK alone!

It’s clear that Royal Mail are dedicated to making sure that your presents arrive on your doorstep in time for Santa because in the run up to Christmas over 18, 000 extra seasonal workers are brought in to help out with the postal process. They help to sort the increase in cards, parcels and packages that are posted around the UK. The seasonal workers are brought in to help out the 130,000 permanent postal workers that help to sort and deliver the UK post around the year.

This year, Royal Mail has invested over 15 million pounds into making sure that the Christmas postal service runs without a glitch. It’s the first time ever that Royal Mail have opened up extra package networks and nine have been set up to help the strain felt by workers when the Christmas season is in full spring.  The extra packet hubs are located in Manchester, Swindon, Nuneaton, Watford, Peterborough, Glasgow, Swansea, Edinburgh and Bristol.

In 2011 the Royal Mail bought an extra 73,000 containers and over one million trays for moving the post around the UK.  The investments that the company have made will help them to have a more efficient delivery service around the year, with online shopping at an all time high.

So as you shop for your last presents you can rest your mind assured that the Royal Mail has your best interests at heart. There are extra trains, trucks and planes working to transport your gifts. Sixty four flights are working each day in December to make sure that your goods get transported through the UK, 9 extra being put on especially for Christmas. There are also an amazing 38,000 vans and trucks distributing the Christmas mail.

So now you know a little bit more about the team at Royal Mail, you also need to jot down the last postal dates so you don’t miss out on getting your presents to your loved ones. It’s your responsibility to post them on time!

Last Post Dates for Christmas 2011

There is still time to send items in the post!

• Tomorrow! 20^th December is the last day to post your first class mail.
• Thursday the 22^ndDecember is the day to make sure that your special delivery goods get posted

For extra information on posting dates: Royal Mail Parcel Delivery Dates

• You missed it!  The 17^th December was the last day to get your 2^nd class items taken care of
• The 12^th December was the last day to make sure that you got airmail items into the postal system for Western European countries.
• The 9^th December was the last postal date for the USA, Canada, Japan and Eastern Europe.
• Anywhere else in the world that’s not listed and you would have needed to make sure that your items were sent packing by the 5^th December!

So don’t miss the postman this week for those last minute items! And if you are trapped in a queue, then you might want to keep yourself occupied.

Mobile Phone Games

In case you have not though about it, your phone is a mobile gaming machine and can easily distract from the long queue of persons waiting to be attended to at the Post Office. Phones and more especially modern phones such as iPhones and Android Mobiles offer a good platform for playing simple games. The games that phones allow you to play are vast including football, tennis as well as mind racing games. One of the games that has become huge over recent years is ‘Angry Birds’.  Sony Ericsson have even responded to the mobile gaming craze, by porting over their PlayStation franchise onto an Xperia handset. All you have to do is ensure that your phone is well charged,  and your time in the queue  will fly by.

Word and Imagination Games

Well, if you did not bring along your phone or you just do not want to run out your phone’s battery or you do not enjoy playing phones games; why not try out word games or even imagination games. Look around for some signs and think about some words that relate to the sign. Try to find out how many words you can create by sampling looking at various signs. Try to make as many words as possible from the words displayed by the signs. See how many words you can make. You may also try to make histories of the building you can see around, and possibly develop a story. Other options you may consider include:

•           Find out how much you know about the buildings around the Post Office and key events that you can link to them.

•           Identify the building you are most familiar with.

•           Alternatively, you can take out a small notebook and play tic-tac-toe or hangman with someone on the line if they are willing or you brought along a friend. If you are alone you could try a Soduku puzzle from the paper.

•           You can also do this yourself, mentally. You may also try to guess the background of the various persons on the line. Try to find out if people’s backgrounds can be known based on appearance.

•           One may also try to see how conversant they are with the equipment around. One can try naming each equipment within sight.

•           Look around the queue and think about who famous they look like. You can also make up funny names for them. Just do not laugh too loud!

•           Lastly, consider looking at the diverse fashions worn by the people around you. Imagine yourself as a fashion judge and decide the winning fashion.

Any more ideas? Leave them in the comments!