PASSING the BT shop in King William Street, Blackburn and noticing it was empty of shoppers, I went in for some telephone stamps.

The office where you pay your bills was boarded up so I approached the main counter to buy my stamps. "Sorry, Sir," this nice young man says, "I do not think we sell them, but I will check."

So off he went. "No," says he on his return. "We do not sell them anymore."

So says I: "You sell phones, but not stamps, you did at one time."

"Not now," says he, "You have to go to the Post Office."

So off to the Post Office. There, a nice young lady is at a counter so I ask for two telephone stamps. "Sorry, I don't sell them," she says. "You have to go to the main counter."

So I turn round and find a queue a mile long and instead of going in and out in no time, I finished up at the back of a queue wondering why that nice lady could not be selling the stamps instead of standing around twiddling her thumbs looking bonny.

G. PILKINGTON (Mr), St Michael's Court, Daisyfield, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.