On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:01:54 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On Jul 19, 7:52*am, Martin Edwards wrote:

David Hansen wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:05:11 +0100 someone who may be "Basil Jet"
wrote this:-

Middlesex exists, it just isn't recognised by the national government.

There is still a cricket club with that name, a university and the
post office know where it is.

The post office know where it is because they have to. *You are not
supposed to put /any/ counties, never mind defunct ones, but people
simply do not pay attention.

*Total nonsense* - postal counties are not required any more, but
nowhere do the Royal Mail state that they should not appear as part of
an address. The Royal Mail is happy for information that is "postally
not required" (their phrase) to appear in an address, just so long as
the required information is given clearly - that is house number or
name and street, and also post town and postcode. (Of course even if
one omits the post town then it'll get through, especially if one is
posting from within that post town - e.g. London.)

Not prohibiting certain information tends to allow an element of
redundancy which is of no help to most mail handling but a great help
in a small number of cases. Reducing redundancy to zero would leave
most addresses devoid of a street name but that would greatly increase
the amount of time dealing with the proportion of mail which is
misaddressed.
Distinct from the use of "obsolete" address information, the real
pests are businesses which make up imaginary postal districts (e.g.
"Royal Deesside") which can hinder the proper (human or machine)
interpretation of an address.