Postal Blues

It's nice to send out some stamps with pictures on them every now and again.
We tend to do it only a Christmas but they're available several times a year.
Today we have an attractive new set of Roald Dahl stamps. I bought myself a few Charlie and the Chocolate Factories. (And despite ordering them with exactly that phrasing still failed to get a titter out of the counter assistant).

Now there's a first class stamp - with 1st written on it to ensure that nobody in Britain knows the true price of a stamp.
And the other denominations in the set of six are 66p, 68p, 76p, £1, £1.10.
Are you with me so far? The only problem is if you want to send a letter or packet to someone it will cost you 39p, 44p, 55p, 58p, 75p, 65p, 79p, 92p, 90p, £1.09, £1.23, or £1.46.
Pretty much anything but the denominations available.

So why do you think those denominations are not available with pictures of Matilda or The Witches or The Twits or Fantastic Mister Fox or James and the Giant Peach.

Well, I thought I'd find out.

The answer: between them they can be used for Airmail to Europe, Airmail to the World, Airmail under 10 g and the 66p appears to be an inexplicable random filler.

So there you go - a nice set of stamps you can barely use. (There is no domestic second class).

And while we're on lessons of philately, should you make the mistake I've just made and send a relative some toothpicks weighing 12g, knowing that to become a large letter it needs to be 100g then please try to squeeze the envelope first. Otherwise when you eventually realise the packet was 6 mm deep, rather than the permitted 5mm, your mother will be sent to the post office, puts under hot lights, told to pay the difference (22p) and given a £1 fine on your behalf to teach everybody a lesson.

Thanks Royal Mail.
Happy New Year.