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Its been a long time since I visited our village post office in Hale, Cheshire.

I’d forgotten that, to post a large letter, you will have to queue behind a line of elderly people struggling to battler their way through the complexities of the modern postal system in this country.

Envelope sizes, weight, distance, contents and speed are all issues in our modern world.

Finally arriving at the counter, I handed my envelope to the lady on the other side of the glass screen.

“First class letter post please.” I asked.

She looked at me with an expression that said “you’ve not been here for a while have you sonny?”

her actual words…..

“Do you want that guaranteed next day delivery?”

Now this confused me – I thought that first class WAS guaranteed next day delivery?

It was when I was a lad.

No longer apparently.

So “first class” seems now to mean: “we are going to do our level best to get it there as quickly as we can but, you know, shit happens and so we can’t be sure.”

Which begs the question – what does “second class” mean?