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Royal Mail Rubber Band

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Re: Royal Mail Rubber Band

#51

Post by trhway »

123pie123 wrote: post #26

my uncle was a postman, when I young he used to give me as many rubber bands as I needed, from memory they were brown I made a daisy chain of rubber bands that - when stetched, was about 400meters long (to the end of our street). When i let it go, I thought something crazy would happen (i was about 6-7)but in reality nothing really happened it just shrank fast I was extremely disapointed, it look many days to do this…

>give me as many rubber bands as I needed

in USSR pretty much everything was in shortage, including rubber bands, and when you got your hands on it, you'd do something like "rubber band motor" plane or boat like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5injNIPjiZc

Re: Royal Mail Rubber Band

#52

Post by cpcallen »

AstaManasta wrote: post #3

It seems they no longer use them. I remember having to pick them up quite regularly so it’s no wonder they consumed so many.

As far as I can tell they've just give back to using brown ones, which makes them a little less obviously related to the Royal Mail when you see them on the ground.

Re: Royal Mail Rubber Band

#54

Post by devoutsalsa »

laurent92 wrote: post #42
123pie123 wrote: post #26

my uncle was a postman, when I young he used to give me as many rubber bands as I needed, from memory they were brown I made a daisy chain of rubber bands that - when stetched, was about 400meters long (to the end of our street). When i let it go, I thought something crazy would happen (i was about 6-7)but in reality nothing really happened it just shrank fast I was extremely disapointed, it look many days to do this…

I was expecting the same, even though I’m 38! On the upside, you dodged what could have been a horrible accident: Ropes snap and take away limbs, tug-o-war accidents are horrible and at scale - https://priceonomics.com/a-history-of-tug-of-war-fatalities/

If I'm going to lose an eye or a limb, I want it to because I got sliced by a 7 year old's 400m rubber band death whip.

Re: Royal Mail Rubber Band

#55

Post by MarkusWandel »

I'm not from the UK obviously because, one look at the picture and my reaction was darn, those things look handy.

The ubiquitous leftover rubber band hereabouts comes from bundles of broccoli but that's a less convenient form factor.

Re: Royal Mail Rubber Band

#56

Post by rb12345 »

mattlondon wrote: post #34
dTal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, you get the bill and you pay with a cheque. In the US you get the check and you pay with a bill.

I don't think I've seen a cheque used in decades now. Are they even still accepted in shops?

They haven't been accepted in shops for over 10 years now. Cheques still see some use elsewhere, but are slowly being replaced by cash, cards and bank transfers depending on the use case. The Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque#United_Kingdom) sums it up pretty well.

Re: Royal Mail Rubber Band

#57

Post by rutthenut »

Theodores wrote: post #33

2005 was peak mail. More letters than ever were delivered then and only in one delivery as they had got rid of the second delivery by then, with post arriving whenever rather than before breakfast. Things started to fall off a cliff in the years after that with businesses and government moving online. However, during this period, with more letters per address delivered at a time, there must have been unprecedented de…

We still receive junk mail with the postal deliveries a couple of times a month. Brown rubber bands too.
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