The Post Office should be a friendly place. Somewhere do drop off a letter to a distant relative, send a birthday parcel to a nephew, or perhaps pick up a delivery you missed. All these activities serviced by a cheery semi-retired gentleman who reminds you of your Grandad.

Unfortunately there are many Post Offices that have insisted on becoming much more than this. A local Post Office close to where I live has become more than just a simple parcel collection point. I’m not sure of the correct term for this particular branch, but I would imagine it to be something like multi-function-retail-travel-and-taxation-emporium. This is not a good thing.

I mentioned last week about going to get my car MOT’d, well this was a prelude to getting my car tax renewed.

As the UK car owners reading this will know, the DVLA kindly sends a reminder a couple of weeks before your road tax is due. This is to remind you that you need to give them £175 to continue driving on their overly congested, badly repaired, mostly coned-off roads. I have discovered however, that this reminder does not arrive if you’ve moved house in the last 12 months and forgotten to tell the DVLA your car moved house with you. Why they can’t figure it out from the fact I updated my driving licence address I’ll never know. Something to do with computers not talking to computers I think.

Anyway, this meant I had to go to the post office with my MOT, proof of insurance and my car registration documents (with my old address on them). The Internet kindly told me I could fill in a V10 form at the post office and get my tax in a very straightforward manner, no reminder documentation is required. A victory for the information superhighway! (which has no congested, badly repaired of coned-off areas). (more…)

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