IS it any wonder Royal Mail always seems to be whacking up its prices? It’s either that or pleading poverty to the government, or a combination of both. And their antics of recent weeks explain why we’ve got a second rate service for a second-class standard of mail.

We pay for a PO Box and re-direction service for our business and therefore cough up our whack to keep the red vans on the road and the postie coming up our front path. Yet three times in the past few weeks I’ve had a letter from them about their business charges.

The first was to tell me they were minded to put them up. The second was to say yes, they were actually doing it and the third, received last week, was to inform me it was definitely happening but they didn’t know when. It would be soon though...

So that’s three letters I’ve had from them when one – or better still, an email – would have sufficed. And maybe I’ll get a fourth informing me the date their charges will actually go up. I’m looking forward to that one.

I don’t know how many business customers Royal Mail has got, but it must be quite a few, although it’s hardly surprising we keep being told that the numbers are dwindling in favour of carriers who appear not to have the same propensity to send out mealy-mouthed blurb to their customers in triplicate.

Think of the admin cost in preparing the three letters I’ve had, multiplied by lots and lots of thousands or maybe a handful of millions.

Think of the forest that must have been felled for the paper and envelopes. And think of the postage. Or don’t Royal Mail charge themselves to send out letters to their customers? Bit of a scam if not, because that means you and me are bearing the cost of their freebies.

And even if they are charging themselves the price of a stamp to send out thousands upon thousands of letters to their customers do they really have to do it three times?

They say they need to make a commercial rate of return so they can “really invest in the business for the benefit of all our customers.”

Well, I’m not an economics expert but if they really want to invest they can use the money they save from cutting the costs of sending out letters in triplicate for a start.

It’s not a difficult notion is it? Perhaps they need a bit of advice on that score. Maybe I’ll write a letter to the top man and tell him what to do. And maybe I’ll post it via TNT...

ALL you people with mums out there, are you ready for Sunday? Have you booked a slap-up meal out or leaving the kids to prepare crumbly burnt toast and (hard) boiled eggs while their mum waits with bated breath and ever-so-slightly nervous anticipation for them to bring her breakfast in bed?

Or have you succumbed to commercial bludgeoning and bought the biggest, glitziest, most soppy card you can find and ordered a bouquet of flowers of big-fat-gypsy-wedding magnitude in a bid to ease the twinge of remorse you might be feeling for not having been as appreciative of your mum during the 365 days since you last bought up the local florists.

Well, if you haven’t already ordered the latter, then don’t. For all mums really want is a kiss and a hug, a home-made card or under-stated one accompanied by a posy of flowers as a token of appreciation, rather than the huge David Hockney style coloured floral concoction for which there aren’t vases many or big enough, delivered by an impersonal courier courtesy of a son or daughter from afar.

Low key and affectionate is all that’s needed. No great fuss, no grand gestures which, let’s face it, might just be more to do with offspring showboating their generosity to make them feel virtuous and assuage their pangs of guilt rather than taking a step back and thinking about what their mum actually wants to do to mark her supposedly special day.

For every son or daughter pushing the boat out on Sunday there will be another keeping themselves moored to their emotional harbour because they no longer have a mum to buy flowers or a card for.

Flamboyant flowers and generous gifts are meaningless when you’d give anything to give your mum a love and a cuddle but can’t because she’s no longer there.