Warning! the writer of this piece (yes,Me!) admits to being poor with numbers...it started with a 'misadventure' when I was 15 (or so) years old and in an all girls Grammar School. We had wooden desks with lids...the maths teacher was a woman in her late forties...She had a very powerful voice ( needed for a class of 40 girls!) and liked to use it.
That day our lives were being made miserable by 'fractions'...worse than whole numbers....She picked up her desk lid, looked at us and boomed ...'The Golden Rule of Fractions.....' thumping emphasis from her desk top...My brain shut down, has never recovered...
The reason for reverting to this painful episode is because the formerly intelligent French postal service also recently got besotted by numbers, each post box (please note the emphasis) has its own four digit number. Your post is not delivered to 'you' but to 'your name' on a box with a certain number....
I have not dared to enquire about the origin of the four numbers.....some say it is to do with nearest cross roads (in kms), others suggest it refers to the nearest point of usuable water, there is also the (paranoid?) supposition that it has to do with the nearest police station - or hospital....One fantasist of my acquaitance says it is in preparation for deliveries by drone...
Under the old system for very rural areas your postal address was your name, followed by the name of the land area in/on which your house was built, then the name and postal code of your nearest Mairie - the main admin point. But then.....then it was highly likely, if not inevitable, that the post delivery person would be related to those receiving the post...
And now...who receives anything on paper anymore? Only those of us who refuse to give our email addresses to all and sundry...
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