Delighted to hear that Post Office workers have achieved riches beyond their wildest dreams in their latest pay settlement.

Sadly they seem to have been celebrating too long and too hard both before and after the award.

A woman rang me to ask why I hadn’t responded to a £1,200 cheque she sent me late last week. Reason: I never received it.

That set me wondering why a colleague hadn’t cashed two large cheques I’d sent her in January and February. So I rang her, and she’d not received either of them. One of them was posted in London, and the other in Harlech. So it’s not just a local problem.

We were in Harlech last week when Von suddenly remembered she’d forgotten to bring three DVDs she wanted to watch. So we rang our London office and the 3 DVDs were posted to us first class on the Monday morning.

They didn’t arrive.

Five days later I discovered there was another house called Murmur-y-Don in Harlech (how DARE they!), albeit with differently named people living there, and a different postcode. So I went to visit. There were our DVDs, clearly and correctly addressed, delivered by the Royal Mail (sorry, Post Brenhinol in Wales) to the wrong people at the wrong post code.

Does the postcode actually mean anything? The doorbell rang this morning in London and before the postman had time to stuff a “Sorry you were out” notice through the door I whipped the door open and snatched the parcel from his hands. He’d put the rest of the post through the letterbox, so I rapidly sorted through it, removed the letters addressed to 22 Albany Road (with a different postcode) and 22 Mount Pleasant Villas (with a different postcode), rushed next door and handed them back to the surprised postie. At least he got the 22 right.

I usually miss postie, so I have to stick the wrongly delivered letters back in the postbox and hope they get it right the second time around. We get sent credit cards, bank statements and God knows what else intended for other people. I’m amazed we get any of our post at all. Now I’m finding the post that we are paying for and sending are simply not getting to their destinations.

Why has it got so bad? Is it Adam Crozier’s fault? Is it a general malaise? When I was a child I once sent myself a letter addressed to “HEADLEY HARLECH” with nothing else (except a tuppenny ha’penny stamp) on the envelope at all. I posted in in Hertfordshire and it was delivered to the house the following day.

All I know is that I’m going to start asking people to pay me by bank transfer in the future. And the Post Office will lose a little bit more of its revenue.

But if I want to send someone in say Switzerland £20, the bank will charge me £20 for the privilege. Much better to pop a £20 note into the post. But will it get there? Or do sorting offices now have sophisticated envelope-sniffing machines which will spot hard currency and deftly relieve the PO from the burden of having to deliver the letter?

We never know until we’re told.

An Unknown Folly in Cardiff?

From time to time I like to describe myself as an architectural historian. After all I’ve written several well-received books on architectural history, all aimed at widening the interest base in the subject rather than seeking academic accolades. This would have been impossible anyway in my preferred subject; follies being seen as meretricious and flippant compared to great church or state architecture.

Unlike many scholars, I’m happy to admit to my failings. I don’t want disciples and I don’t expect my work to be followed slavishly and unquestioningly. It would make me uncomfortable.

All this is by way of making excuses to admit that I was not familiar with the work of Paul Sandby, the artist who is the subject of a new exhibition at the Royal Academy. I was not aware he had produced such an impressive body of detailed architectural and landscape watercolours, throughout the second half of the eighteenth century.

He started work as a draughtsman and map-maker, and this early precision stayed with him throughout his life. Although a number of his works are described as capriccios — they showed an idealised or imaginary landscape — the buildings are rendered with the formality of a measured drawing.

Look at his watercolour of The North Terrace, Windsor Castle, Looking West, c.1765 and admire the razor-sharp accuracy of the cut stone.

This was clearly done to commission, unlike this windy view in a very different style of the artist’s own studio, an elegant classical pavilion perhaps designed by his elder brother Thomas, built at the end of his garden in St. George’s Row, somewhere in London. Now Thomas Sandby I had heard of in the world of follies — he was nicknamed Tommy Sandbank for his failure to build effective dams.

These crisp images are supplied by the Royal Academy’s PR department, but I saw drawings, etchings and sketches that interested me much more. Here alas the image quality plummets, because these were snapped at the exhibition with my iPhone (ancient model) so the quality is what Von quaintly refers to as SWILL — you can just about See What It Looks Like.

Firstly, Paul’s brother Thomas’s design for the grotto which still exists at Virginia Water. Two images, one a water colour, one an etching, the etching showing the cascade and a Chinese bridge (which I didn’t know about).

And here is a lovely picture of a folly high over the countryside — The seat near the Terrace at Windsor with a view of the adjacent country to the north-east, c.1765. It is a witty, happy painting of some rumpty-tumpty going on at the back of the eyecatcher — for that is what this seat is. You can see the back of the pediment, so there must be a seat in the grandly decorated front façade overlooking the vista, with the two penthouses at the back for courting couples.

Now this really does intrigue me. If it had been situated somewhere other than Windsor, then you could have come back with me to a dark December afternoon in the 1970s, and just picture stumbling across this ruined folly, sans wooden seats at the back, stucco peeling off the façade, buried in a dank, wet overgrown wood on a remote hillside with no remaining vestige of a view. And here it is in its pomp, being put to the use I always suspected it was designed for. The artist clearly had a sense of humour. I don’t know Windsor well enough to say if the seat still stands, but I’ll happily bet the view is now obscured by trees. Which is probably as it should be, seeing that you’d be looking out over Langley and Slough.

There’s plenty more to see and enjoy at the exhibition — Sandby’s bills to Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn for travelling up to Wynnstay make interesting reading — but my final discovery was this stunning little Gothick castellated Tower of the Winds, apparently built inside the city walls of Cardiff. Sorry it’s such a rotten picture, but the item was very small in the painting. Was this ever built? Could it still be there? Was this another fantastic, wishful embellishment by Sandby?

Sadly I think the last explanation is the most likely. I very much doubt if it still exists, if it ever did.

Paul Sandby (1731 – 1809): Picturing Britain, A Bicentenary Exhibition 13 March 2010 to 13 June 2010 at the Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London

When I say goodbye to people I often add some incoherent noise which sounds like “take care” or “lotsaluv”. It’s an automatic reflex; I’m not fully aware I’m saying or writing it, and although I always mean what I say — I want people to take care, and I do send my love to them — it’s not a special, individually crafted, personal connection with the person or people involved. I’m sure they think no less of me for saying it, and I doubt they often think about it at all.

Americans from the north and east greet each other with “Hey!” which if an Englishman were to use to call another Englishman would probably result in a bloody nose. It presumably derives from the Scandinavian “Hej!” and is not intended to carry any offensive connotations. Western and Southern Americans prefer “Hi!” which is easier to English ears. A typical Glaswegian greeting is “Hoo are yoo lookin’ at?” and it’s best not to reply.

Germans (in Hesse at least) call “Schüss!” when leaving a shop or bar. I’m not absolutely certain if that’s how it’s spelled. Austrians encountering each other on mountain passes and elsewhere hail with a hearty “Grüß Gott!”, while the Arabs counter with “Alhamdililah!”

Italians say “Ciao” whether coming or going and so as a result (Italians being über cool) does much of the rest of the world. It’s actually a Venetian word, along with ghetto, lido, imbroglio, casino and regatta, and is a dialect version of “schiavo”, meaning “I am your slave.” Think about that the next time you say it.

I also enjoy the way that every Italian, from street punk to international philanthropist, answers the phone with a careful “Pronto?” It sounds so funny to these Brit ears, a mournful “Hurry along now, I haven’t got all day!” but in fact all it stands for is “I am READY to receive your telephonic communication.”

I was on a bus this morning and a woman was saying goodbye to a friend on her mobile. “Have fun,” she said.

That’s nice.

The British satirical magazine Private Eye has for years run a column titled “Pseud’s Corner”, where pomposity, pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectualism in writing (hence Pseud’s Corner) is reprinted without comment for the reader to smile at and inwardly mock.

I was invited to an exhibition of photographs of battlefields in New York this weekend (sorry, can’t make it) but was delighted to read this pyrotechnic display of pseudery to describe the collection of empty fields:

Taken over a 10 year period, the featured photographic works, documentations of actual battlefields, call into question the autonomy of “place:” the disparity that exists between historical events and the geographic locations in which they occur. Apart from the occasional historic marker or didactic memorial plaque, little visual evidence remains to distinguish one site from another, a disconnect that evokes the transient nature of history, the arbitrary lines of the battlefield and the universality of the theaters of war.

What tosh. It’s so wonderful.

Americans have many faults, but they are seldom cynical, whereas the British are a nation of cynics. Perhaps it’s our media. There’s no real American equivalent of Private Eye or Le Canard Enchainé, traditionally taking the mick out of whatever party is in power. In Britain, the party in power always regards the BBC as an affront, suspects it is batting for the opposition, and tries its best to muzzle it. There’s no BBC in America.

So in the US, Democrats hate Republicans, Republicans hate Democrats, and both hate the Federal government. The Americans hate each other and are frightened of everyone else. Poor Obama, who does the best he can in an impossible job, has to contend with snappy slogans such as “The zoo has an African Lion, the White House has a Lyin’ African.”

Most of America’s hatred is directed inward, which leaves its pseuds free to concoct superbly crafted oceans of nonsense such as we see above. I think I might nick some of this to describe Aaron’s Time Machine: New York, which is being released soon. More strength to them. We all need summat to laff at.

When I were a little lad at prep school in North Wales, our headmaster and maths teacher was an ancient old codger called Charlie Rhodes. He was immensely pleased with himself. He drove a Mark II Jaguar and took holidays in Spain; we would have three consecutive days of slide shows in the autumn term. The first time I saw 100+ mph on a speedo was when he drove four of us along the beach in his Jag. He proudly informed us that he had a nine inch penis, and we looked at each other in wonder, wondering what a penis was. He woke us from our dormitories and took us down to the beach at night to see Sputnik I flying over.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the school no longer exists. Old Charlie (he must have been at least 30) was probably unsuited to today’s PC world. He would swagger into the classroom and announce “I’m the best bloody maths teacher you’ll ever see!”

And you know what? He was right.

The reason, he cheerfully admitted, was because he was thick. As a child, he found maths incredibly hard. He just couldn’t work it out. Then, little by little, he began to see chinks of light. The mysteries unveiled themselves. And because he had struggled with the difficulties, so he understood the way to the answers. There was no intuitive understanding, no revelation, no flash of realisation. Light dawned slowly. He took us down the same path. We all learned.

By the age of 11, we were doing Maths ‘O’ Levels. By 12, we were doing differential calculus, quadratic equations and ‘A’ levels. Not sitting the actual exams of course, the education board wouldn’t allow it, but we did the papers with ease.

I was finally allowed to sit my Maths ‘O’ level and my Advanced Maths ‘O/A’ level the term before I went to my public school. I passed both with top marks, Grade 1. They were a doddle.

So I arrived at Haileybury & Imperial Service College with two O-levels under my belt. “Well, you’re only thirteen,” they reasoned, “so we can’t have you doing A-levels with 17 year olds. So you won’t be taking maths.”

End of that part of the story. I haven’t had a maths lesson since then. And now I have to take my socks off if I want to count up to twenty. What a stupid, unimaginative, inflexible school Haileybury was.

I write this on the 47th anniversary of the day at Haileybury & ISC that I was beaten by the Master, beaten by my Housemaster, then handed over to 47 gathered and slathering housemates with the injunction “Headley has Done Wrong. He has already been sufficiently punished by the Master and Myself.” And the door was discreetly shut.

When I came to, I was informed that I was to be gated for the rest of the term, then gated for the whole of the summer term, in which I was to take my ‘O’ levels, and then at the end of the summer I was to be expelled in disgrace.

The Saturday night film in Big School was “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” Naturally, I was forbidden to go. To this day I have never seen the film.

Being gated, I would obviously have no distractions, so I was put down to sit fourteen ‘O’ levels, which with the two I already had would have given me sixteen. 16 ‘O’ levels. Many more than the average Haileyburian’s 5 ‘O’s. Rather more than the Oxbridge entry level 10 ‘O’s and 3 ‘A’s. Naturally my father was invited to pay the plump fee per exam.

I won’t embarrass myself further by revealing the results. But two years later I was in a rock ‘n’ roll band on the King’s Road in Chelsea at the heart of the Swinging Sixties. There could not have been a greater differential of contentment.

Why am I writing this? I intended to write a note about pixels and dots per inch. I’ll now have to write that on the fotoLibra Pro Blog. And when I’ve done it I’ll post a link to it from here, so you can see the tenuous connection.

I can never forget what I did, and what happened to me as a result, on March 3rd.

I received an impressive appeal from the daughter of friends of ours in Switzerland. She is working for the reconstruction and restoration of  a school in Pacomit, southern Albania, and she was soliciting donations on behalf of International Project Aid.

I’m not a great fan of Albanians as they appear to be behind a lot of the crime in North London, but obviously this means they need more educating. I thought I’d send her £20, so I tried to arrange this with my English bank.

They were happy to help, and also to charge me £20 for the service.

So I thought: the charity gets £20, and the bank gets £20 for sending my £20 to Switzerland. Not very equitable.

Instead I’m sending cash in the post. The banks really ought to get their act together and realise that we humans live in a small, poor world and not all of us expect a seven figure bonus on top of our salaries every year.

A bonus would be nice, but it’s more than I can dream of.

Come to think of it, a salary would be good as well.

The four broadsheet newspapers in Britain in order of circulation are The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and The Independent.

Mondays, I buy The Daily Telegraph.
Tuesday, The Times.
Wednesday, The Guardian.
Thursday, The Times.
Friday, The Independent.
Saturday, The Guardian.

On Sunday I usually buy The Observer, or occasionally The Sunday Times.

Each paper has its good points, but if it came to the crunch and I was only allowed one, I think it would probably be The Guardian — for the excellence of its graphic design more than its politics.

One thing where The Guardian and The Independent beat The Daily Telegraph and The Times hands down is that they’re not mealy-mouthed and prudish.

At one stage in the last US election Senator John McCain turned and spoke to his ever-loving wife, one middle finger on each hand extended into the air. I don’t know if The Daily Telegraph or The Times reported it, but had they done so, this is what would have appeared in both those esteemed journals:  “**** you! ****, ****, ****, ****, ****, ****, ****, ****, ****!!!”

I hope The Guardian and The Independent were more precise.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is a Non Departmental Public Body (NDPB), established under the Equality Act 2006. Their sponsor department is the Government Equalities Office.  They have a board of commissioners who steer the commission’s work and direction.

Many of those who worked in the previous equality commissions — the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC)  — joined the new Commission, creating “a body with an enormous wealth of experience and knowledge about race, sex and disability equality and discrimination.”  Many more people have since joined the gravy train — sorry, Commission; — experts in sexual orientation, age, religion and belief and human rights and people with skills and experience in all relevant functions.

Much of this data is taken from their website. It doesn’t say that the “experts” who work at the Equality and Human Rights Commission have to be barking mad, and I am sure that some of them might actually be sane, but the members of their Board of Commissioners are clearly deranged.

They have permitted the publication of a document which claims that body scanners at airport security gates might infringe human rights.

The Commission has expressed concerns about the apparent absence of safeguards to ensure the body scanners are operated in a lawful, fair and non-discriminatory manner. It also has serious doubts that the decision to roll this out in all UK airports complies with the law.

An absence of safeguards, such as monitoring who is being scanned and how those scans are carried out, means that authorities are unable to check if in practice people are being unfairly selected on the basis of their race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation or disability.

These last two paragraphs have been lifted verbatim from their web site. Fantastic, isn’t it?

Far better that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s rights remain uncompromised than worry about the possibility of 400 innocent people falling screaming to their deaths.

My taxes pay for this Equality and Human Rights Commission to deliver tosh like this. Instead of reporting it, why doesn’t the media treat it with the derision it deserves? What is the purpose or function of an organisation with such a laughably tenuous grasp on reality?

Why doesn’t it do the decent thing and quietly disband itself, and let its experts in sexual orientation and other highly paid professionals try and make a living in the real world — which has to pay for these bureaucratic follies?

What is an expert in sexual orientation anyway?

It’s frightfully old-fashioned to talk about it, but most of us who share a culture (i.e. who were educated in the country they now live in) have a basic idea of how to behave in public.

Yes, it differs from country to country, and what is common practice in some parts of the world is abhorrent to others.

I stepped out of a shop the other day and as I did so an old man of Mediterranean appearance — Greek, I’d guess — delivered a gob of such mighty proportions and mucilaginous integrity that there was a loud crack when it hit the pavement right between my shoes.

I stared at him in horror and revulsion but he didn’t even notice. He just shuffled past with his unconcerned headscarved wife.

He came from a country (or culture, or era) where or when spitting in public was acceptable, I guess. He thought nothing of it. I was disgusted and offended. He was totally unaware.

Then I went to the hole in the wall to draw cash. As I was hunched over, secretively typing in my PIN number, a black lad came right up to my side, shoved some papers under my nose and asked something like “Do I pay this in here?”

I was outraged. I rounded on him and shouted “Get away from me! Stand back when I’m using the ATM!”

Startled, he fell back a couple of paces. “Right back! Stand behind the line!” I yelled. People were beginning to stop and stare.

“Don’t you understand?” I went on. “Don’t talk to people when they’re using a cash machine. It’s not …” — and here I paused, searching for the word — “it’s not POLITE.”

He stared at me as if I were a dinosaur, which to him I probably was. Polite? What was polite about a transaction with a hole in the wall?

Yet keeping your distance from someone who is using a cash machine must be the most universal basic modern courtesy. He was a Brit; how can he not have known that?

When I’d finished, I turned and he was still there. I stared at him, and he sauntered slowly off, eyeballing me.

An innocent query, misinterpreted by me? Or malicious intent?

I think I was right to react the way I did, because the only way in my culture that I could interpret his actions was to see them as potentially threatening.

There’s a debate on both sides of the Atlantic as to what we call the decade just passed.

The British tabloids have enthusiastically embraced “the Naughties”, irrespective of the fact that it has almost certainly been the least naughty decade of our lives.

A respected American magazine reports that there is grudging agreement to call it “the aughts” — an agreement so grudging it certainly hasn’t penetrated my, or any other Brit’s, consciousness, nor have I seen it in any American literature.

I suppose the next decade will be known as “the teens”, despite 2010, 2011 and 2012 not being teen years.

Pragmatically the French ignore such neologisms and simply call the last decade “les années 2000″ and the next decade “les années 2010″. When asked to name the Swinging Sixties they shrug and propose “les années 60″. Makes life easy, I guess.

Anyway, I’m going to call it The Noughts, when I have to refer to it. People will know what I mean. “Naughties” is far too nudge-nudge and prurient, and “Aughts” is simply baffling.

Discussing this in the office, I was picked up on my pronounciation. I’m perfectly happy with the way I speak — I have no accent at all, except perhaps a bit of London and a touch of Welsh — but I am aware I do pronounce some words differently to other people. SOSSpan instead of SORCEpan, for example, but that’s simply Welsh. PLARStic instead of PLASStic, and I have no idea where that comes from. Everyone else I know says PLASStic.

But up until today I had no idea I have spent my entire life mispronouncing the word Decade. Everyone else (that’s EVERYONE else) says DEKade, and I say DeKADE, as in Decayed. I am simply wrong. So the Decayed Decade from my mouth just sounds like repetition, or a lamentation.

I’m going to have to practice the new, more correct pronounciation.

Old dog, new trick.