On 04/08/2010 16:43, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Arthur Figgis wrote:

Cambridge doesn't have a campus. Unless you are a dodgy looking tourist,
in which case it is that way ---

Cambridge as a whole no but the college I'm most familiar with (Churchill)
feels rather campusy.

The colleges each have their own postcodes, though Name, College,
Cambridge is pretty much certain to work (unless there are two people with
the same name there), and there will be a porter to collect whatever it
is. I guess there might be a problem if you are getting a big heavy thing
which needs to be delivered to a very specific place.

I was thinking of things like laser printers and even reams of paper, where
you might want it delivered to a specific entrance/building.

The departments will have postcodes too.

Though I suspect that there are so many obstacles to the easy handling
of some loads (especially big heavy things) that providing site-specific
delivery instructions would often be a good idea, if only to avoid your
box of widgets being trapped behind the event horizon of the Botolph
Lane one-way system or impaled on a rising bollard.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In message id, at
17:41:29 on Wed, 4 Aug 2010, Dr J R Stockton
remarked:
When I was in Cambridge, I used a very short address that worked every
time. (Sidney Sussex, Cambridge). I've never had the opportunity to
have such a short address again.

That could cause problems with an item posted in Massachusetts.
Especially as there appears to be a Sidney Sussex College in New York,
New York.

I might reasonably expect an international correspondent to add "UK".
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:

When I was in Cambridge, I used a very short address that worked every
time. (Sidney Sussex, Cambridge). I've never had the opportunity to
have such a short address again.

That could cause problems with an item posted in Massachusetts.
Especially as there appears to be a Sidney Sussex College in New York,
New York.

I might reasonably expect an international correspondent to add "UK".

Even so mail can go to wildly different places. The University of Kent at
Canterbury (UK) and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) have received
some of each other's mail over the years.

Getting back towards transport, Belmont station was originally named
"California" after a nearby pub but supposedly renamed because mail kept
going to the US.

In message , at 15:51:35 on Thu, 5 Aug
2010, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:
Getting back towards transport, Belmont station was originally named
"California" after a nearby pub but supposedly renamed because mail kept
going to the US.

There's a village called Pennsylvania north of Bath. Doesn't have a
station though.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 20:20:21 on Thu,
5 Aug 2010, Ian Jelf remarked:
The moral of all this - an a moral all too frequently not understood by
the Great British Public - is that postal addresses and administrative
geography un Britain are very different things.

The bigger problem is not that it's poorly understood by the public, but
that it's poorly understood by businesses who attempt to carve up their
service areas based on postcode, when administrative (and physical)
geography is usually a better idea.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote on 05 August 2010 21:25:29 ...
In , at 20:20:21 on Thu,
5 Aug 2010, Ian remarked:
The moral of all this - an a moral all too frequently not understood by
the Great British Public - is that postal addresses and administrative
geography un Britain are very different things.

The bigger problem is not that it's poorly understood by the public, but
that it's poorly understood by businesses who attempt to carve up their
service areas based on postcode, when administrative (and physical)
geography is usually a better idea.

I thought the whole point of postcodes was to carve up the country based
on the most efficient way to organise deliveries. In which case, why
aren't postcodes also better for other businesses, rather than
administrative geography which is often still based around historical
boundaries that have little relevance today?
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at 15:51:35 on Thu, 5
Aug 2010, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:
Getting back towards transport, Belmont station was originally named
"California" after a nearby pub but supposedly renamed because mail
kept going to the US.

There's a village called Pennsylvania north of Bath. Doesn't have a
station though.

There's a California in Birmingham too.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Richard J. wrote:

The moral of all this - an a moral all too frequently not understood by
the Great British Public - is that postal addresses and administrative
geography un Britain are very different things.

The bigger problem is not that it's poorly understood by the public, but
that it's poorly understood by businesses who attempt to carve up their
service areas based on postcode, when administrative (and physical)
geography is usually a better idea.

I thought the whole point of postcodes was to carve up the country based
on the most efficient way to organise deliveries. In which case, why
aren't postcodes also better for other businesses, rather than
administrative geography which is often still based around historical
boundaries that have little relevance today?

Well it was actually the most efficient way in the past although the post
codes could have some extreme versions and in general reflect the way mail
was actually moved around at the time - the most extreme I can think of was
the PA postcode which once reached all the way up to the Butt of Lewis
because mail to the Outer Hebrides went via Abbotsinch airport. I wouldn't
be surprised if other post codes reflect the use of rail at the time and
don't bear the best relation for how other companies deliver services - e.g.
insurance where premiums vary quite a lot on either side of the London post
code boundary for no reason other than that.

In message NuF6o.94523$tB1.12249@hurricane, at 21:50:52 on Thu, 5 Aug
2010, Richard J. remarked:
The bigger problem is not that it's poorly understood by the public, but
that it's poorly understood by businesses who attempt to carve up their
service areas based on postcode, when administrative (and physical)
geography is usually a better idea.

I thought the whole point of postcodes was to carve up the country
based on the most efficient way to organise deliveries. In which case,
why aren't postcodes also better for other businesses, rather than
administrative geography which is often still based around historical
boundaries that have little relevance today?

Because other businesses have different catchment areas to those
convenient for postal sorting offices.

The example I usually give is the villages between Cambridge and the
Hertfordshire border (at Royston). It's of very little use if when you
search an estate agent's website for houses to buy, that the ones for
sale in those villages only show up if you tick "Hertfordshire" (on
account of their SG postcode) rather than "Cambridgeshire" (because you
wanted a house near Cambridge, not one near Stevenage).

It doesn't even work for other delivery companies, who will typically
ask you to go and retrieve a mis-delivered packet at their Stevenage
office, when the Cambridge office is a third of the distance away and in
a town you probably visit quite often - rather than almost never.
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 09:40:22 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
It doesn't even work for other delivery companies, who will typically
ask you to go and retrieve a mis-delivered packet at their Stevenage
office, when the Cambridge office is a third of the distance away and in
a town you probably visit quite often - rather than almost never

That might have nothing to do with postcodes or counties. The delivery
company depot is chosen for their convenience and they might use the
Stevenage one because it is bigger and has more capacity than their
Cambridge one, even if the later is nearer. The fact that you have to
travel further to collect a parcel doesn't bother them, you aren't even
their customer.