Support the CWU

There's a postal strike coming. Support it - the postmen and women are being painted as lazy, reactionary troublemakers rather than hardworking people who aren't opposed to 'modernisation' - they're opposed to reduced services with inadequate staffing.

Personally, it means going cold turkey. No books in the post. Worse than that, the university post is suspended while new pigeonholes are constructed (they look too small for more than a single paperback - more dumbing down). I had to scavenge in the school office to get my fix today: two Angela Carter novels (Love and Several Perceptions) from the 1960s and (finally) Colfer's Hitchhiker's Guide novel, And Another Thing… Wonder if I'll hate it as much as Cynical Ben (here and here).

You've got Mail

If you read Metro or one of the other rightwing papers (which ones aren't, these days?), all you'll have seen about the upcoming potential postal strike is that posties are lazy bastards who constantly skive and con their managers.

Anita the Lurker has kindly sent me this article from the London Review of Books (very good - subscribe today) which explains in some detail how the Mail is being made to look inefficient and obsolete, and how managerial culture is destroying this iconic lifeline. Funnily enough, posties are being treated in the same way we academics are - as blockages to some imaginary 'income stream' or 'repositioning' or whatever buzzword's current.