Readers with a nervous disposition should turn the page because I’m going to be sprinkling the C-word across the next few paragraphs. It’s still August and clearly much too early to be discussing Christmas, but a campaign has been launched that requires attention now.

First, a quick quiz. How much is a first-class stamp? Bzzzzz, time’s up. It’s now £1.80, which means a book of six is more than a tenner. Madness. I’ve taken to queuing in my local post office and buying stamps only when I require them, one at a time. If you knew the queue there as intimately as I do, you would appreciate this is a major sacrifice. Although I imagine your post office queue is probably much the same – young women with multiple Asos and Shein returns; someone sending an immensely complicated parcel to Melbourne; a nervous traveller trying to arrange their holiday money and so on. But stamps have become too expensive to buy in bulk, so I wearily stand behind them.

I send fewer letters and cards as a result. As for the idea of sending dozens of Christmas cards? Forget it. I’m not a hedge-funder.

It would be cheaper to hop on a flight to Albania and post 100 Christmas cards there than use Royal Mail

It would be cheaper to hop on a flight to Albania and post 100 Christmas cards there than use Royal Mail

Enter four........

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