Greetings everybody, we're back from Ireland where the weather was much better than it has been, and remains, here in the UK. A taste of this was the yellow alert issued for the eastern side of Northern Ireland after we sailed to Scotland on Wednesday, and what we had for a considerable time in Co Durham and the north east yesterday which continues today- after a sunny interlude across Lincolnshire yesterday afternoon - in Norfolk.
It's happened before that important announcements are made when we take a break, so this is a quick acknowledgement to the many people who have written in the last three weeks.
The following topics will be covered in blog posts soon:
- September slogan postmarks
- Postage rate increase meaning a new airmail rate stamp (and Royal Mail have confirmed that there will be no more airmail rate country definitives.
- outstanding orders: sorry I forgot to shut the shop so a few orders have been delayed.
- the person who wrote about Universal Mail will get a reply eventually!
- forgeries and how Royal Mail is dealing with them
- amazingly incorrect information being supplied by Post Office branches including Crown Offices. (You don't have to use old stamps before the price increase!)
- I'll also be writing about blog comments which have not been published. Comments must be relevant to the post they are on.
UPDATE So circumstances conspired to prevent my dealing with these in a timely manner.
1. Royal Mail is not presently surcharging any mail which apparently has postage paid with a forgery, so no 'yellow-label' mail at present. This despite the scanner addition to the Royal Mail app, and Stanley Gibbons being engaged to adjudicate on disputes over surcharged non-forgeries.
2. There was a short spate of incorrect information being provided by POs, in comments here, by emails to me in August, and on social media platforms. Sadly I have lost track of where so this topic will await new instances and reports.
3. This continues, unfortunately, and often from people who are either anonymous or who I don't know from their nickname. Comments must be relevant to the post they are on. I am not going to reply, even when the topic is worth it, on a comment which is irrelevant to the subject post.
Also, if you have a question or a comment on something older or more obscure, it is worth using the search box a the top left, to find out if this has been the subject of an earlier blog post. We have covered the new Tracked 24 and 48 service and the fact that you can NOT use stamps for it. And that compensation on Signed For has dropped from £50 to £20. But if you still have questions about that, then that is the place to ask them, or use email.