Come With Me to Cloud Cuckoo Land and the Moon

Hi Everyone

This week, a teenager was asked which item cost the most, a first class postage stamp or five chocolate creme eggs. Back in 1914, just before WW1, a letter cost one penny in old money, less than half a penny in today's money. If you apply inflation to that one penny stamp from 1914 to now, a letter or greetings card should cost about twenty five pence to send anywhere in the UK. The answer to that question was predictably the postage stamp at £1-80. If you lived in London in 1914, there were six postal deliveries every day so you could write a letter to someone at breakfast time and get a reply before you had your evening meal. In the rest of the country, there were at least two deliveries each day. When WW1 started in 1914, millions of letters were delivered every week to servicemen and women serving in Northern France, with a two to three day delivery time. Now, despite the fact that the stamp is nearly six times the cost in real terms, we are lucky if we get three deliveries a week, even though Royal Mail sbligation to provide a daily delivery service. As last weekend was the Easter holiday weekend, there were no deliveries for four days, with our first delivery three days later. You say that this does not matter now, as we now have text and Email messaging. In my experience, unless you text or email friends and family, you are unlikely even to get a reply. I have been writing to the Ministry of Work and Pensions for the last three years. It takes them at least six months to reply, and although I include my email address on my letterhead, I have never received an electronic reply. Is that what you call over a century of progress?  

I am sure that you have been told at some point that you are living in “cloud cuckoo land”. It refers to a state of absurd, over-optimistic fantasy or an unrealistic, idealistic mindset disconnected from reality. People said to be in this state believe that impossible things will happen. It is often used to describe impractical or naive thinking. No, it is not the Senior Partner I am talking about. Unfortunately, she never had any of those thoughts, even though it can be an attractive state of mind to experience at certain times. If you then add “pie in the sky”, “never never land”, “la la land” and “fantasy land”, you might just begin to recognise the direction I am going in. When Valensky called for afternoon tea, he was told that he had no cards to play. Now his ‘friendly’ host might still have a pack of cards, but it will be interesting to see what the heck he is going to do with them, especially as his ‘playmate’ also has a pretty good pack of his own, even though they might be a little frayed at the edges.

Back in 1969, millions of us stayed up until 3-00am to watched grainy black and white images of Neil Armstrong stepping down to the surface of the moon. This week we have been in what seems like the next room as the latest astronauts have taken us to the moon and back. I hope that this results in a new generation of young people being inspired by engineering, and technology as although space exploration is vasltly expensive, it has proved to be a rich source of advancement.

Just a Thought:

Never upset your postman. He knows where you live. 

A relationship is like playing cards. It starts with hearts and diamonds and ends with clubs and spades.

My friend went to a restaurant in space. The food was great but there was no atmosphere.