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December 23, 2005
Daniel Davies Was Right!
I know, I know, not a headline you are likely to see here often. From Tim, we see that sending items Freepost to the League Against Cruel Sports is not a good idea.
As The Scotsman tells us:
AT FIRST glance, it appears as if an extraordinary spirit of Christmas rapprochement has broken out between those traditional foes, the Countryside Alliance and the League Against Cruel Sports.
Why else would thousands of hunt supporters be sending out cards
with seasonal good wishes to the headquarters of the anti-hunt brigade?
...
The anti-hunt group purchased a Freepost address to make it easier for donors to send in the money.
But, as with all Freepost addresses, the host organisation has to pick up the postage charges for all mail sent to that address, with every envelope costing the recipient more than a first-class stamp. It costs £210 to set up a standard Freepost address, and the recipient then has to pay 39p for each piece of mail received.
So some figures in the Countryside Alliance sent out a message to hunt supporters suggesting they send a Christmas card in an envelope, minus a stamp, to the League Against Cruel Sports Freepost address - leaving the league to pick up the postage.
So far, 14 sack-loads of unsolicited mail have arrived at the League's London headquarters, a deluge which has forced the organisation, in desperation, to contact the police and the Royal Mail.
So, there we have it. D2 was right, this is bad behaviour.
Just so you know what I’m talking about, sending a Christmas card, book, foreign money or small amounts of coins to:
LEAGUE AGAINST CRUEL SPORTS
FREEPOST SE 5087
LONDON SE1 1BR
would be a bad idea. It is not just that inciting someone to do this would be illegal it is also that actually doing so would be naughty. And who wants to be a naughty child at this time of year?
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Comments
Now, now. Christmas spirit and all that.
Although, truth be known, there's more than one or two purveyors of junk mail who've discovered to their considerable cost that send me a freepost or reply-paid envelope is a very, very bad idea.
There's just something inescapably satisfying about taking the time to carefuly giftwrap a house brick in brown paper and string before gluing the envelope to it and dropping it off at the local post office for delivery.
Posted by: Unity | Dec 23, 2005 12:17:16 PM
There's just something inescapably satisfying about taking the time to carefuly giftwrap a house brick in brown paper and string before gluing the envelope to it and dropping it off at the local post office for delivery.
Er, you do know that the recipient can just claim the money back off the Royal Mail? They had to introduce this rule years ago to stop the whole thing from collapsing.
This is just nonsense that some bright spark comes up with every few years and assumes that no-one has ever thought of. The result is higher costs passed onto everyone else (including the League of Cruel Sports and whatever your personal favourite charity is).
Posted by: James Graham | Dec 23, 2005 12:25:31 PM
I think the point was made in the original thread; how is this different from spam? It's not so much "naughty" as unredeemably arseholey, not least because it it worked (thank god it doesn't) everyone would start doing it and the Freepost system would collapse, to no very obvious advantage.
How much do I have to pay for you to knock this off?
Tim adds: It’s currently 12:57. In about 3 minutes the sirens will go off and the entire country will be drunk for the next two weeks. So I don’t think I’m actually doing any harm.
But if you’d like to pay something for me not mentioning it again then go over to Sortapundit and stick something in his collection box to send him to Outer Mongolia.
That is our Christmas charity this year, after all.
Posted by: dsquared | Dec 23, 2005 12:39:29 PM
The linked article says that "police are investigating": No details of what crime they are investigating. I will be curious to see if any offence has been committed.
Posted by: Marcin Tustin | Dec 23, 2005 8:58:57 PM
The linked article says that "police are investigating": No details of what crime they are investigating. I will be curious to see if any offence has been committed.
Posted by: Marcin Tustin | Dec 23, 2005 9:01:38 PM
While we're at it, can everyone slap a First Class stamp on a housebrick and send one to the ASI, the Globalisation Institute and dear old Timmy Worstall's place? I'm sure they'd be glad to pay the excess charges, after all.
Or perhaps they just want the evil state postal mechanisms to collapse. And. Maybe. That's. The. Point.
Sorry if I'm not joining in with the hilarious season of goodwill, but posts like this one really do make me wonder what the point of this blog really is.
Well, that and the fact that nasty morons like Rob Read get to spray the place with their spite (remember the Menezes 'suicide' stuff he came out with, anyone?) unchallenged, wheras the more considerate likes of D^2 always get a 'Tim Adds'...
Still, what would I know. I haven't edited a book about blogs.
Oh, and Happy New Year!
Posted by: N.I.B. | Dec 24, 2005 12:31:36 AM
[P]osts like this one really do make me wonder what the point of this blog really is
I can sympathise with you on this one, mate. I've never figured out what the point of this blog is either, but I do find it a highly entertaining read each day. I think where you're going wrong is thinking that a blog needs a point for it to exist, whereas the beauty of blogging is that the best blogs exist for no other reason than the author wants to say something that others want to hear. There doesn't need to be an underlying point to its existence.
My advice is to stop looking for a meaning to everything, and you'll enjoy reading blogs a lot more. This comes from someone who has never figured out why he writes his own blog, especially given the fact that it has a readership of about 15 people per day, most of whom came by accident whilst Googling for Russian hookers in Dubai.
Posted by: Tim Newman | Dec 24, 2005 5:07:56 AM
It worries me that people think Tim N knows of hookers in Dubai....must check out his blog mroe often!
Posted by: Dave t | Dec 24, 2005 9:01:12 AM
TimN: No, you're entirely right. It's unsolicited bulk mail, hence spam, and worse, it's taxpayer-funded spam. Exactly the behaviour we want to discourage on the Net as good citizens. Irresponsible.
Posted by: Alex | Dec 30, 2005 12:05:16 AM
