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What is the minimal possible UK address?

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Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#351

Post by zhte415 »

pm215 wrote: post #318
Symbiote wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a reasonable letter, I doubt the way it's addressed makes any difference. Members of Parliament have a duty to listen and respond to their constituents, which in Sunak's case is the people of Richmond, North Yorkshire. I don't live there, but I have lived in a senior government minister's constituency in the past. I wrote one letter, and I did get a reply — I doubt my letter was directly read by the minister,…

The difficulty these days is the volume. Rory Stewart (an ex-MP) mentioned on his podcast recently that one of his predecessors in his seat in IIRC the 1950s got about 5 letters a week to deal with; when Rory was an MP in the 2010s he was getting over 20,000 emails a year. It's much easier to have a personal touch in correspondence at 5 a week!

That's about 55 per day, or a little over 100 per working day. Perhaps too many for a detailed personal response for each, but certainly enough to read. Categorising well for future action, response, ongoing follow-up, a part of a staff member's job.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#352

Post by chipsa »

voisin wrote: post #81
ClapperHeid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and, if you write to a member of parliament at the Houses of Parliament, you don't have to use a stamp. So presumably... HP ...with no stamp on the envelope could theoretically work. Now, which MP has the shortest name?

No stamp required is due to “Franking privileges”. Same as in Canada.

US Congress people also have “franking privileges” but it only applies to outbound, not inbound mail.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#353

Post by Karellen »

netsharc wrote: post #346
Karellen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That always trips a lot of people up because .uk is the country-code top-level domain for Great Britain, and cctlds are assigned using the 2-letter ISO country code for that country. ...except for Great Britain, who were one of the first few other countries to be connected to the internet, and decided to use .uk before people realised that every country would need one, and using already-assigned ISO codes would be th…

Huh? The country is called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", or the UK for short. Strictly speaking, if you talk about Great Britain, you're excluding Northern Ireland, but politically GB isn't a country... Wikipedia says "Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean", although historically there was also the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Well, go complain to ISO then, not me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes...

Edit: Also, if you've ever seen UK teams compete in international sports, all their athletes have "GBR" on their team uniforms.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#354

Post by agreement5051 »

Aromasin wrote: post #177
theginger wrote: post #152

If you write to the DVLA (driver and vehicle licensing agency) they have various individual postcodes for different departments Eg SA99 1AR is vehicle customer services The whole of SA99 I'd dedicated to the DVLA, so simply SA99 on an envelope would probably get there, although written just DVLA would probably do that same.

Tangentially related, but I'm ordering a vehicle logbook from the DVLA at the moment. I'm a millennial/Gen-Z straddler, so it's been a real blast from the past-I-never-had. I need to pay for my tax online. In order to do that, I need a number which is found in my logbook (V5C), which I've lost. Can I do that online? Nope. To order a new log book, I need to fill out a V62 form and post it to the DVLA, along with a che…

I've heard that you can write a cheque yourself on a piece of paper. I coudnt find much online about it except for this https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20.... Id go with a postal order to be safe, but could be fun to try a DIY cheque!

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#355

Post by agreement5051 »

ClapperHeid wrote: post #37
BasedInfra wrote: post #6

You can put just ‘HMRC’ (UK tax department) on a letter (with paid postage) and it will get to them.

...and, if you write to a member of parliament at the Houses of Parliament, you don't have to use a stamp. So presumably... HP ...with no stamp on the envelope could theoretically work. Now, which MP has the shortest name?

Do you have a source for that? I could only find this, which seems to say the opposite: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/218301/response/54314...

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#356

Post by mr_toad »

kjs3 wrote: post #289
dghf wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite was the one addressed simply “Gobshites”, with no further details. It was successfully and correctly delivered to the Dáil (the lower house of the Irish parliament). ETA: source —- https://www.her.ie/amp/lol/unbelievable-this-letter-made-it-...

I wonder how they determined it was for that pack of gobshites, and not the band[1]. Penmanship? Cheery stamp? [1] https://www.thegobshites.com/

Attitude? I’d imagine a fan would be more careful with the address. Someone who addresses a letter with “Gobshites” is likely pissed off at something.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#357

Post by Symbiote »

trollied wrote: post #229
Aromasin wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related, but I'm ordering a vehicle logbook from the DVLA at the moment. I'm a millennial/Gen-Z straddler, so it's been a real blast from the past-I-never-had. I need to pay for my tax online. In order to do that, I need a number which is found in my logbook (V5C), which I've lost. Can I do that online? Nope. To order a new log book, I need to fill out a V62 form and post it to the DVLA, along with a che…

For future reference, you can pay with a Postal Order, which you can get over the counter from any Post Office.

I can't remember what it was, but my mum used postal orders a few times to protect her privacy. Unlike cheques, they don't have your name.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#358

Post by Symbiote »

netsharc wrote: post #346
Karellen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That always trips a lot of people up because .uk is the country-code top-level domain for Great Britain, and cctlds are assigned using the 2-letter ISO country code for that country. ...except for Great Britain, who were one of the first few other countries to be connected to the internet, and decided to use .uk before people realised that every country would need one, and using already-assigned ISO codes would be th…

Huh? The country is called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", or the UK for short. Strictly speaking, if you talk about Great Britain, you're excluding Northern Ireland, but politically GB isn't a country... Wikipedia says "Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean", although historically there was also the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Letters like K for kingdom are generally avoided in codes, since this way a change of constitution to the Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland doesn't require a new code.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#359

Post by chipsa »

burnt-croissant wrote: post #338

I think this is commonly known due to address finders online for shopping etc. providing autofill based on these two items. However, I would be more interested to understand how the address is used by the postman delivering the mail. If you have just a post code, do they have to look up the street name (how?) or is it already pre-organised for them so they know that stack/bag X of letters all corresponds to street Y…

It’s a sorting of all the mail to the mail carrier level, so yes, they do only need to look at the door number. Similarly the ZIP+4 in the US will give down to some fraction of the mail carrier’s route, that they can then sort to a monotonically increasing delivery point number, that is where the carrier actually stops. A full barcode includes the delivery point, but it’s not usually included on the written address.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#360

Post by Symbiote »

knodi123 wrote: post #266
Oxidation wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0N0E, maybe (Null Island)? Depending on if latitude and longitude count as coded or not. Otherwise "Burj tip" could be quite good (centimetres).

I don't think 0n0e would count- too coded. But "Burj Tip" is great, it might have won the contest (judging involved lots of arguing)! Alas, we already ate the prize though, so you're out of luck.

K2 peak

Top K2

90°S

0,0

Ø in Denmark doesn't really compete, nor the many villages called Å in Norway.

For the opposite, the most area with the fewest letters, Io, Sun and Space.

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