Ports and post codes

[vilakins]

I just saw on teletext (TV text news) that NZ is building a new prison in Port Vila. :-P Apparently the two existing ones are "on their last legs". I think Vila would prefer them that way. For that matter, he'd also rather it was the other sort of port that was named after him

Comments

[hafren]

Oh damn! As you say, that is so wrong.

[vilakins]

I had to laugh when I saw it though. Poor[t] Vila.

[kalypso_v]

Oh yes, I saw a news story about that, though they told it as if you hadn't had a postcode system at all. But if you're just changing two digits, it sounds as if it's merely being refined, probably a bit like when Germany changed it after reunification. It is annoying having to change stationery, though. They changed our city postcodes very slightly - my then address went from 9GU to 3GU - just after I'd moved back, and had had both personal and professional letterheads done. I just tippexed the number out until I'd used them up.

[trixieleitz]

...they told it as if you hadn't had a postcode system at all.

Our old one was the same for the entire city (pop. about 200k). Our new one covers several suburbs, so it doesn't narrow things down all that much. It probably refers to one postie nest or something.

[kalypso_v]

I'm pretty exclusive, because my postcode is just for me and the telephone exchange next door (which occupies several house numbers)! Usually they cover several houses - which is still pretty useful if you're looking up an address on one of those street-map websites.

Yes, I seem to remember the German change was something similar. I don't have my sister's old code to hand, but from memory it was something like 69000 and it became 69121.

And I do remember when our postcode was just M20. Roland Watson, who lived just down the road from here, reels that off as part of his address in Elidor (published 1965). The more detailed code must have come in between then and 1973, because I remember my birth-house was 0BJ and that was when we moved.

[vilakins]

I remember London having postcodes like SW1, so that they were referred to almost as areas in books I read.

[trixieleitz]

Ours is 90210 :P

Still not as good as the UK system, imao.

[vilakins]

No, that one's almost accurate to the house.

[trixieleitz]

The building I worked in in Cambridge had one all to itself! So an envelope addressed to Trixie Leitz, XY0 ZZ9, UK would theoretically have reached me. I thought that was pretty cool.

[vilakins]

It is! One of my UK LJ friends puts her postcode in the 'location' field and it shows up on the map.

[linda_joyce]

Vila would be proud yto show how easy the new prison was to break out of.

Your post code reorganisation sounds a lot like ours. I went from NP1 5JL to NP11 5JL.

[vilakins]

I'm sure the new prison will be much tougher, but of course for Vila it'll be a doddle. :-)

[reapermum]

While I was at school they moved the county boundary. I had to remember that I now lived in Worcestershire and no longer in Staffordshire.

those of you who have my snail-mail addy

I've amended my address book before I forget.

[vilakins]

Eep. Moving a whole county is a bit drastic.